Caterina Volpi Associate Professor, Sapienza Università di ...nationalmuseum.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:... · Gallerie degli Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, no. 19152. Art

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volumes 24 – 25Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volumes 24 – 25

An Unpublished Drawing on Panel by Salvator Rosa Depicting a Landscape with a Philosopher and Astrological Symbols

Caterina VolpiAssociate Professor, Sapienza Università di Roma

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volumes 24 – 25

Foreword

Dr. Susanna PetterssonDirector General

Associate Professor

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volumes 24 –25, 2017 – 2018

(An Unpublished Drawing on Panel by Salvator Rosa Depicting a Landscape with a Philosopher and Astrological Symbols, Fig. 6, p. 22).© The Capitoline Museums, Rome. Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini, Roma, Sovrinten-denza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali.(A Drawing for Pietro da Cortona’s Rape of the Sabine Women, Fig. 2, p. 28).© Bibliothèque Nationale France, Paris.(The Entry of Queen Christina into Paris in 1656, by François Chauveau, Fig. 2, p. 32).© Finnish National Gallery/ Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki. Photo: Jaakko Lukumaa(Self-Portraits and Artists’ Portraits as Portraits of Friends – A Selection of Paintings and Drawings, Fig. 2, p. 72).© IKEA.(Spika and Tajt – Alternative Furniture for a Young Generation, Fig. 5, p. 88).© Moderna museet, Stockholm(Henry B. Goodwin – A Visual Artist with the Camera as His Tool, Fig. 2, p. 90).© The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.(Per Krafft the Younger and Belisarius – One of the Foremost Swedish Examples of Neoclassical Painting in the French Style, Figs. 3–4, pp. 113–114).© Albert Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm(Nils Kreuger’s Drafts for the Covers of Bland Franska Bönder (1889) by August Strindberg and Ord och Bild (1897), Fig. 2, p. 137). © Bukowskis auktioner, Stockholm(Nils Kreuger’s Drafts for the Covers of Bland Franska Bönder (1889) by August Strindberg and Ord och Bild (1897), Fig. 3, p. 138; Acquisitions 2017: Exposé, Fig, 3, p. 178).© Pia Ulin.(The Nationalmuseum’s New Restaurant – An Artistic Collaboration, Figs. 1, 2, 4, and 5, pp. 149, 150, 152 and 153).© Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain(Per Krafft the Younger and Belisarius – One of the Foremost Swedish Examples of Neoclassical Painting in the French Style, Fig 3, p. 112 and In the Breach of Decorum: Painting between Altar and Gallery, Figs. 1–8, 10–12, and 14–18, pp. 155–172).© Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 3.0

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, is published with generous support from the Friends of the Nationalmuseum.

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Cover IllustrationEtienne Bouhot (1780–1862), View of the Pavillon de Bellechasse on rue Saint-Dominique in Paris, 1823. Oil on canvas, 55.5 x 47 cm. Purchase: the Hedda and N. D. Qvist Fund. Nationalmuseum, NM 7434.

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EditorsLudvig Florén, Magnus Olausson and Martin Olin.

Editorial CommitteeLudvig Florén, Carina Fryklund, Eva Lena Karlsson, Audrey Lebioda, Ingrid Lindell, Magnus Olausson, Martin Olin, Cilla Robach and Lidia Westerberg Olofsson.

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Picture EditorsLudvig Florén and Rikard Nordström.

Photo Credits© Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi.(An Unpublished Drawing on Panel by Salvator Rosa Depicting a Landscape with a Philosopher and Astrological Symbols, Fig. 3, p. 19).© Teylers Museum, Haarlem. (An Unpublished Drawing on Panel by Salvator Rosa Depicting a Landscape with a Philosopher and Astrological Symbols, Fig. 5, p. 21).© The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Photo by Pavel Demidov.

(In the Breach of Decorum: Painting between Altar and Gallery, Fig. 9, p. 163).© Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 2.0(In the Breach of Decorum: Painting between Altar and Gallery, Fig. 13, p. 167).© The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. Bequest of John Ringling, 1936. (In the Breach of Decorum: Painting between Altar and Gallery, Fig. 19, p. 173).© Uppsala auktionskammare, Uppsala (Acquisitions 2017: Exposé, Fig 4, p. 178).

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Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum is publishedannually and contains articles on the history and theory of art relating to the collections of theNationalmuseum.

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© Nationalmuseum, the authors and the owners of the reproduced works.

ISSN 2001-9238

17 Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volumes 24 –25, 2017 – 2018

ACQUISITIONS/AN UNPUBLISHED DRAWING ON PANEL BY SALVATOR ROSA

An Unpublished Drawing on Panel by Salvator Rosa Depicting a Landscape with a Philosopher and Astrological Symbols1

Caterina VolpiAssociate Professor, Sapienza Università di Roma

Fig. 2 Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), Philosopher in a Wood, c. 1665. Pencil and ink heightened with white on panel, 48 x 66,2 cm. Nationalmuseum, NMH 16/2018.

18Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Volumes 24 –25, 2017 – 2018

The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm owns three drawings on poplar wood by Salvator Rosa, which are of exceptional value since works of art of this kind are rare in Rosa’s oeuvre and unique in their genre. One represents The Abandoned Oedipus (NM 6839), another a Rocky Landscape with a Tree and Two Figures (NMH 219/2017), and a third a Philosopher in a Wood (NMH 16/2018). The first drawing is scarcely known, but has been published and discussed by Prytz;2 the second, representing a rocky landscape with a magnificent tree in the foreground (Fig. 1), is a superb version of another drawing on wood, of the same sub-ject but of poorer quality, preserved in the Musée Fabre in Montpellier and published by Mahoney in 1977.3 The drawing on panel depicting a Philosopher in a Wood came to the Nationalmuseum with the collection of Nicola Martelli in 1804. It is unpublished and was only recently rediscovered among the works in the Museum’s collection store.4 It measures 48 x 66.2 cm,5 and de-picts a stand of trees with, at its centre, an extraordinary tree trunk, whose roots en-fold a stone mass on which a philosopher is seated. He is dressed in the characteristic toga and is intently examining symbols on the ground, while pointing towards the horizon. In the background, a group of trees whose branches are tossed in the wind underline the wild and remote nature of the landscape (Fig. 2). The drawing, signed “SR” at the lower right, belongs to a nucleus of just twelve drawings in pen and white lead on panel, attributable to Rosa, that have thus far come to light. This small group of works is nonetheless significant because it is unique in its kind, represen-ting a midway point between painting and drawing.6 These works were probably executed as experiments during the artist’s Florentine years and then later through the 1660s, alongside his engravings.7 Given their rarity and the difficulty in assigning them a clear function, Rosa’s drawings on panel now constitute a case apart, difficult to interpret and forming part of an oeuvre


Fig. 1 Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), Rocky Landscape with a Tree and Two Figures. Pencil and ink with white accents on panel, 61.1 x 39.9 cm. Purchase: the Wiros Fund. Nationalmuseum, NMH 219/2017.



that was chaotic and vibrantly creative, from an artist who certainly chafed at the limitations of category and genre. However, it is possible, through a careful examination of documents, correspon-dence and works, to throw more light on these drawings and attempt to decipher the peculiarities of their form, content and function. On 26 January 1666, Salvator Rosa wrote from Rome to his friend Giovan Battista Ricciardi in Pisa:

Now that you are closer to me, I did not wish to miss the opportunity of sending you the crates which I consigned this morning to this courier, to be sent to Signor Cosimo Fabretti, Florence, and from there to Pisa; and I did this because I was afraid they might not find you there. In this way, you will be able to take them yourself, and I have sent them in excellent condition. … Everyth-ing you will find there was done by me eight to ten months ago, … in the long box you will find a single painted canvas, for I took it upon myself to execute on one what might have been done on two.8

It is very likely that the letter is referring to the canvas and drawing of The Death of Empedocles, given that the wood panel bearing the sketch for the painting, now in the Uffizi in Florence and on dis-play in the Palazzo Pitti, is inscribed on the reverse “To Sig. Salvator Rosa” and then, in Rosa’s handwriting, “to Sig. Cosimo Fabretti Florence/Pisa/duty-free” (Fig. 3).9 The inscriptions on the reverse of the panel thus do not refer to the buyer of the painting, but to the first recipient of the box, on which Rosa had drawn the sketch of Empedocles so that it would reach his friend Ricciardi. The figure of the boast-ful philosopher described by Diogenes Laertius in the Life of the Philosophers (VIII, 69) – avid explorer of the mysteries of nature who was punished with death for his daring, his insatiable curiosity sending him directly into the mouth of Etna – was studied at the time by scholars of the

Fig. 3 Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), The Death of Empedocles. Pencil and ink heightened with white on panel, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, no. 19152.


calibre of Gabriel Naudé, Leone Allacci and Paganino Gaudenzi, the latter a friend of both Ricciardi and Rosa.10 These scholars, and in particular Naudé in his Apologie pour tous les grands personnages qui ont faussement soupçonnez de magie of 1625 and Gaudenzi in his Della peregrinazione filosofica of 1643, had defended the ancient naturalists and scientists Empedocles and Pythagoras against accusations of magic, representing them rather as symbols of human curiosity and wit, and of the insatiable quest for truth. It was a charac-terisation that might equally well have fitted Ricciardi himself, or the magician and scientist Athanasius Kircher, another friend of Rosa and a correspondent of Evangelista Torricelli. Empedocles, lost in his musings on nature and fascinated by the volcano to the point of being swal-lowed up by it, is also a close relative of the astrologer, magician and alchemist immersed in thought in the wood on the Stockholm panel, and belongs to a unique stock of images, common to Rosa and to his philosopher and scientist friends. It is very likely that the panel drawing of the philosopher/astrologer, which still bears on its reverse the marks of what may have been the bottom of a drawer, was sent, like the drawing of the philosopher swallowed by Etna, to Ricciardi or a mutual friend.11

It is above all from the early 1660s that the sending of drawings, paintings on copper and small canvases in wooden crates seems to increase significantly, perhaps as the artist began to produce significant numbers of engravings. It appears that, from 1660 on, the artist devoted himself to engraving with increasing enthusiasm, and felt the need for continuous feedback from his erudite philosopher friend in Pisa.12 Thus, in March 1662 Rosa sent sketches for the prints of Polycrates, Diogenes and Alexander, Diogenes Throwing down his Bowl, Democritus and Phytalus to Pisa: “Just before writing I consigned the crate to the Florentine courier: To Signor Simon Torrigiani of the Florentine duty-free post


Fig. 4 Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), The Abandoned Oedipus. Ink heightened with white on panel, 65 x 45 cm. Nationalmuseum, NM 6839.


vases, that indicates the value that Salvator attached to the works to be sent to his Pisan friend: “This morning I delivered to the Florentine courier a crate bearing your name, with the promised drawing inside, which I know will appear as I described it the first time, that is, a simple sketch of an idea (‘spegazzo del pensiero’), and moreover I have been able to effect the improvements you desired. Enough, I will send it to you as it is in order to obey you: included with it I have also put the papers that you do not have, together with three small canvases, which I hope will please you because I like them. The crate will come duty-free to Florence. Please

which his friend had also requested, be-cause “since these are landscapes, I drew them directly on the same copper. Enough, I will not fail to pay my debt and as soon as I have put something else together, I will send it to you immediately.”14 As we know, the drawing did arrive, evidently a little later, executed on a panel of poplar wood, perhaps with a proposal for a commission for the painting since, in December 1666, Rosa himself wrote to Ricciardi saying: “I still haven’t painted the giants and Oedip-us” (Fig. 4).15 But it is above all his letter of October 1663, in which the artist once aga-in refers to a courier with a crate addressed to Ricciardi containing drawings and can-

office for Signor Giovanni Battista Ricciardi in Pisa. You will find inside the painting, together with the drawing of Polycrates in two sections, which were executed at Strozza Volpe. The sketches of Alexander with Diogenes, Phytalus and two others, that is the drawing of Democritus, and a missing drawing, which I have not been able to find yet, and its companion Diogenes Throwing down his Bowl. All in excellent condition as you sent it to me this last time.”13 In August of the following year, in answer to a speci-fic request from Ricciardi, Rosa sent the drawing for the Giganti, explaining that he was unable to send the sketch of Oedipus,


Fig. 5 Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), Landscape with Discussing Figures. Pencil and ink on paper. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, E 022.


exercise due diligence with the courier, since the Florentine courier promised to ensure that it would continue on to Pisa.”16 From the Florentine years (1641–49) on, Rosa experimented with the use of different mounts, made of unusual or rare materials such as chalkboard, slate, copper or stone, as a result of his contact with the refined and cultivated collections of the Medici court; materials that were often used for paintings of philosophical or magical subject matter.17 But if the paint-ings of magical subjects tended to use a mount such as stone or copper to lend them greater value, lustre and mystery, in the case of the drawings on panel it seems that Rosa deliberately employed poor and humble materials in common use, and this was particularly well suited to the circulation of works that were intimate and affectionate, to sketches and outlines, “spegazzi del pensiero” executed for his closest friends and collectors. An example can be found in a bizarre creation that the artist made in the villa of Barbaiano dei Maffei, who was a friend of the painter and a host to him more than once; here, as we learn from Baldinucci, he drew “many figures and narratives on the walls, crea-ting the illusion that they were paintings hung by nails, and everything just in charcoal, brightened by chalk or white lead”.18 Thus it is that, on perusing a quick list of the inventories in which these characteristic works of the painter are cited, it is not surprising to find the grea-test number of “small paintings in wood with figures in chiarello” in the collection of Giovan Battista Ricciardi – some 15 judging by the inventory published by Paliaga19 – while “a landscape in pen on panel with a gilded frame roughly three palms high depicting the temptation of Christ in the desert”, “A small landscape of a village in gouache with a carved gilded frame by the hand of Salvator Rosa”20 and a “work in pen by Salvator Rosa” in the collection of Carlo de Rossi are cited in the inventory of Agostino Correggio from 1674; “a drawing on an oblong panel in


Fig. 6 Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), Democritus and Protagoras. Oil on canvas, 185 x 128 cm. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, ГЭ-31.


he found hospitality with the scholars of the university, in particular with Paganino Guadenzi and Giovan Battista Ricciardi. The latter, as can be surmised from the numerous entries in Monconys’s diary, had revealed to the Frenchman the secrets of the fusion of mercury, and together the two had attempted experiments with aquafortis, mercury and silver, though they were not successful. Nonetheless, the dip-lomat remained fascinated by the secrets possessed by Ricciardi,29 much more so, it would seem, than with the conversa-tions that took place shortly afterwards with Evangelista Torricelli, which never touched on scientific experiments with mercury, tending to focus rather on the subject of spectacles.30

The Stockholm philosopher, sorcerer and alchemist is therefore a work that was born from this cultural context, between Rosa’s Rome of the Chigi and Ricciardi’s Galilean Pisa. It is a very particular form of art, halfway between an outline, a drawing and a painting, destined in all probabi-lity for his friend Ricciardi who, more than anyone else, was able to appreciate its philosophical and scholarly content. Stylistically, the figure and the landscape are linked to a series of drawings executed around 1664, also depicting philosophers immersed in landscapes and gesticulating, reflecting and discoursing according to figurative models already used by Rosa in his Florentine years (in works such as The Philosophers’ Grove, Florence, Palazzo Pitti) but which have now become more monumental, rhetorical and grand (Fig. 5). The figure finds particular parallels in a group of drawings linked to the execution of the painting of Democritus and Protagoras, now in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, a painting completed some time before 1664 and sent as a gift to the King of France (Fig. 6).31 These are years in which Rosa’s reflections on landscape painting are increasingly bound up with a philosophy of nature – we recall that Protagoras is later cited by the Jesuit priest Daniello Bartoli in “La Tenzione e

with figures in chiarello”, while from the words of Rosa himself it is possible to surmise that the artist regarded these drawings on panel as preparatory sketches, or “spegazzi del pensiero”: models to be used for engravings or paintings and to be evaluated by his scholarly friends. The theme of the little Stockholm panel was particularly well suited to Ricciardi; here, as with Empedocles, a philosopher, magician or scientist is depicted, intently interrogating the secrets of nature and with his raised arm pointing towards a remote horizon, expressing the impossibility of reaching a full comprehen-sion of the mysteries of creation. The signs that the man has recently traced in the earth are illegible, but belong to a generic stock of astrological, alchemical and magi-cal symbols that hark back to some youth-ful dabbling in witchcraft in the artist’s Florentine years. The presence of symbols linked to the planets and the zodiac – we seem to make out Aries, an arrow and the symbol of Mars – would lead us to identify this as an alchemist–astrologer figure. He would thus be yet another representative of the gallery of sages from antiquity dedi-cated to the sciences, to experiments and calculations, that includes Empedocles, Pythagoras and Archita (Archytas), all of whom had captured Rosa’s particular inte-rest in his later years, no doubt stimulated by reading the writings of the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher, if not also by meeting him in person.27

In 1664 Balthasar de Monconys was brought by Niccolò Simonelli to see the “paintings of the sculptor’s wife” – perhaps referring to the collection of Costanza Bonarelli, who died in 1662 and was the owner of Poussin’s Bacchanal of Putti, and whose paintings had passed into the hands of Domenico Salvetti (he died in 1664 and was canon of Santa Maria Maggiore and secretary to Alexander VII) – and to buy paintings for Rome.28 The French diplomat had returned from travels that had taken him to Africa and across Europe, and in November 1646 he stayed in Pisa where

chiaroscuro work by Salvator Rosa”21 in that of Giorgio Bergonzi from 1709; and finally, a “painting 2.9 palms in height and 2 palms in breadth representing a land-scape, drawn on panel by Salvator Rosa”22 in the inventory of Valenti Gonzaga from 1763.23 This indicates that these works made their way into established collec-tions, though they were referred to alter-nately as drawings or paintings, pointing to an uncertainty of definition which is perpetuated to this day in catalogues and exhibitions. The dating of the drawings on panel that are known today is rather broad, and runs from Rosa’s late Florentine years, with the first examples of philosophers and soldiers’ heads drawn in ink directly on unprepared wood, using white lead to heighten or create chiaro-scuro effects,24 to the last years of his out-put, in the 1660s, when most of the works are small panels in which small figures contemplate a wild, deserted and enig-matic natural landscape, sometimes represented simply by huge tree trunks and dry and inhospitable rocks, all ex-ecuted with great mastery, skilfully using the natural grain of the wood, with rapid strokes of ink over traces in pencil, and with highlights in white lead. As Mahoney has already noted, the wood used was often recycled and came from packing crates or, in the case of the Stockholm philosopher/astrologer, from ordinary household ob-jects such as a drawer.25 It is possible that in some cases, such as Empedocles or the Man Kneeling under a Tree in the Incisa della Rocchetta Collection, Rosa recycled wood packaging already sent to him by someone else and that he decorated it with sketches in order to make boxes to send back to his friends.26 To attempt to characterise and assign a plausible categorisation to this eccentric output of Rosa’s, we can, as stated above, rely only on the inventory citations and the few fleeting references contained in the artist’s correspondence. The oldest allusions, those in the inventories of De Rossi and Ricciardi, refer to “wood panels



Pressione disputanti qual di loro sostenga l’argento vivo ne’ cannelli doppo fattone il vuoto”, published in Bologna in 1677. Next to paintings such as Archita and Empedocles, which seem to have sprung from the magical fantasy of Athanasius Kircher, the Stockholm panel shows how the painter is increasingly tending towards more mysterious images of hermits and philosophers immersed in a natural world that is grandiose, disturbing and hostile, which can be seen as the very opposite of the triumphalist and allegorical Baroque vision of nature. A depiction of nature as hieroglyphic, as Kircher who was a scholar of Egyptian writing would have said, and as the Stockholm philosopher seems to suggest. Paintings such as the Auguri, the landscapes with philosophers and hermits formerly in the Mahon collection, or the Landscape with Hermit from a private collection (Fig. 7),32 all datable to the mid 1660s, are very close in style to the Philosopher in a Wood in Stockholm, a work that can therefore be dated to around 1664, when Democritus and Protagoras was painted.

Notes:1. This article is a revised version of an Italian article by the same author: Caterina Volpi, ”Disegni su tavola tra opera grafica e pittorica nel catalogo di Salvator Rosa, il Paesaggio con filosofo e segni astrologici di Stoccolma e alcune considerazioni”, in Storia dell’Arte, 1, n.s., 2018, pp. 109–120. 2. Prytz and Eriksson 2010, pp. 82–85, and Norlander Eliasson, Prytz, Eriksson and Ekman, 2015, no. 80, pp. 200–204.3. Mahoney 1977, n. 68.7. Rocky Landscape with a Tree and Two Figures measures 61.3 x 40 cm and is signed at lower left. It was acquired by the Museum at Christie’s on 5 July 2017, coming from Colnaghi (Colnaghi, London 2000, no. 219). It was exhibited in Naples in 2010 (Napoli 2010, II, p. 83, no. 3.42) and in Paris in 2014 (Marty de Cambiare 2014, p. 30, no. 10). Compared with the Montpellier version, the Stockholm composition is more painterly and beautiful, with generous use of ink that gives the landscape depth, movement and a characteristic dramatic impression, typical of Salvator Rosa’s late landscapes.4. I quote here what Daniel Prytz – who studied Oedipus and was a great help to me in that connection – has recently written to me about the Astrologer’s provenance: The Astrologer is listed


Fig. 7 Salvator Rosa (1615–1673), Rocky Landscape with Figures. Private collection, Naples.


structing the biography, chronology and cultural context of Salvator Rosa’s work.9. Florence, Uffizi, inv. no. 19152.10. For the painting, now in an English private collection, cf. London and Fort Worth 2010, pp. 212–213, no. 34; Volpi 2014, no. 316, pp. 589–590.11. On Salvator Rosa and pre-Socratic philosophy, see London and Fort Worth 2010, Langdon 2011, Volpi 2014 with previous bibliography, Volpi 2017b.12. On Salvator Rosa’s etchings, cf. Wallace 1979 and Rome 2014. On Rosa’s drawings, cf. Mahoney 1977, more recently see Lipsia and Haarlem 1999, Volpi in Paris 2010, pp. 125–134; Sorrento 2016.13. Rosa 2003, Lettere, no. 261, p. 284; letter of 11 March 1662.14. Rosa 2003, Lettere, no. 290, p. 310 “Voi mi chiedete il disegno dell’ultimo rame intagliato de’ Giganti, quand’io già l’havevo messo da parte per voi; è ben vero che ne caverete poco di bello, per essere un semplice pensiero. La stampa però è rius-cita assai bene, e di non ordinaria sodisfazione presso quelli della professione. Circa all’altro disegno dell’Edipo, non posso promettervelo per non havervi fatto disegno, ché per essere materia di paesi, l’o disegnato sopra il medesimo rame. Basta, non mancherò al mio debito, e, unito che haverò qualche altra cosa assieme, ve la manderò subito”; letter of 25 August 1663.15. On the Oedipus drawing now in the National-museum, Stockholm, NM 6839, ink and white heightening on panel, 65 x 45 cm, cf. Prytz and Eriksson 2010, pp. 82–85, and Norlander Elias-son, Prytz, Eriksson and Ekman, 2015, no. 80, pp. 200–204.16. Rosa 2003, Lettere, no. 293, p. 313: “Questa mattina ho consegnato al procaccio di Fiorenza una cassetta col vostro nome, con dentro il disegno promesso, il quale so che riuscirà qual’io ve lo descrissi la prima volta, cioè semplice spegazzo del pensiero e quel che più importa incapace di quel meglioramento che voi desiderassivo. …”17. On this topic, see the article by Langdon (2018).18. Baldinucci (1681–1728), 1974–1975, V, pp. 462–463.19. In the Ricciardi inventory, the paintings made “in chiarello” are generically described and thus cannot be identified. Two of them however, representing heads of soldiers, remained in the Lazzari and Bizzarri collections, coming directly from the collection of Ricciardi; cf. Mahoney 1977, nos. 13.13 and 13.14.20. Cf. Volpi 2014, p. 626.21. Getty Provenance Index Database, Inv. I-3642, item 244.22. Getty Provenance Index Database, Inv. I-3631, item 304.23. Getty Provenance Index Database, Inv. I-397, item 255.24. The drawings of heads that Mahoney dated between 1649 and 1660 must be dated instead

and above all dealer in paintings and other works of art in Rome during the second half of the 18th century. He was close to Sigismondo Chigi, an heir of the Chigi family who was very much involved in science and art, but he was also in touch with other amateurs such as Cardinal Fesch. On Martelli and Sweden, see S. Norlander Eliasson in Norlander Eliasson, Prytz, Eriksson and Ekman, 2015, pp. 19–35, and D. Prytz in ibid., pp. 37–51. It is possible that Martelli, being so involved in science and experimental methods, would have greatly appreciated the iconography of Salvator Rosa and decided to acquire it on the market, or that he bought it from Sigismondo Chigi’s collection where, somehow, the drawing arrived during the 17th century, possibly through Rosa’s friends Niccolò Simonelli or Carlo de Rossi. I am most grateful to Martin Olin for having read my text and for giving me a good deal of interesting advice about provenance.6. The eleven drawings on panel that have come to light to date were catalogued among the Salerno paintings in 1975, and the Mahoney drawings in 1977, cf. Salerno 1975, nos. 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 217, 232; Mahoney 1977, nos. 13.12; 13.13; 13.14; 68.4; 68.5; 68.6; 68.7; 80.13; 80.14; 80.15; 80.16. The dra-wings are as follows: Due teste di cui una di filosofo con barba, British Museum, Payne Knight, pp. 5–101, 290 x 230 mm; Due teste di soldati, Florence, coll. Bianchi-Bizzarri, now in private coll., 365 x 269 mm; Due teste, Florence, coll. Lazzareschi, 361 x 269 mm; Uomo seduto in un bosco che alza il braccio sinistro, Florence, Uffizi, 19151, 880 x 650 mm; Filosofo in piedi nel bosco, Florence, Uffizi, 19174, 340 x 270 mm; Alberi e figura di spalle, Florence, Uffizi, 19173, 340 x 270 mm; Paesaggio con due figure, Montpellier, Musée Fabre, 825.I.277, 560 x 330 mm; La morte di Empedocle, Florence, Uffizi, 19152, 880 x 635 mm; Due uomini in un paesaggio, Florence, Uffizi, 19149, 280 x 505 mm; Un uomo seduto davanti ad un paesaggio, Florence, Uffizi, 19150, 280 x 505 mm; Figura in ginocchio davanti ad un albero, formerly Rome, Incisa della Rocchetta-Chigi, diameter 885 mm.7. Mahoney rightly dates panels 13.12, 13.13 and 13.14 to the Florentine years. For 13.13, formerly in the Bizzarri collection, cf. the recent Volpi 2017a, p. 180.8. Rosa, Lettere, 2004, p. 339. For the strong friendship between Rosa and Ricciardi, professor of philosophy in Pisa, writer and poet, and a friend of Paganino Gaudenzi and Torricelli, see Paliaga 2009 and Volpi and Paliaga 2010. The correspon-dence between them dating from 1649 until Rosa’s death has recently been published by Borrelli, in 2003 (Rosa, Lettere, 2003). New letters concerning Rosa’s activity in Rome were published in 2010 by Volpi and Paliaga (Volpi and Paliaga 2010). Let-ters are still the most valuable materials for recon-

as no. 293 and Oedipus as no. 290 in the catalogue of the Martelli Collection made in 1797 by Carl Fredrik Fredenheim, the first curator of the Royal Museum (Kongl. Museum), the predecessor of the Nationalmuseum. This catalogue was prepared by Fredenheim on the basis of information sent to him from Italy concerning the contents of the collection, but before the actual works arrived in Sweden. The two works in question are described as: “Paysage avec un Astrologue. sur bois” and “Oedippe. Dessein sur bois”. In his catalogue, Fredenheim also retains an “original” series of numbers originating from Martelli’s own, now lost, catalogue. In this original Martelli catalogue, the Astrologer is listed as no. 35 and Oedipus as no. 168. In Fredenheim’s catalogue, the Martelli numbers are referred to as “Nombres du local”, possibly alluding to the order in which the works were hung in Martelli’s gallery in Rome or in which they had been acquired. Before the Martelli Collection was sent to Sweden, he had Domenico Corvi and Stefano Tofanelli add verso labels with their attributions of the works. On these labels, which have been retained, the two works are described as: “S. Rosa. Ast[r]ologo in campagna. Tavola” and “S. Rosa. Edipo. In Tavola”. When the first catalogues and inventories were drawn up after the arrival of the Martelli Collection in Sweden, there was for several decades a clear intention to keep the two works together, until they were suddenly separated and the Astrologer and Oedipus were alternately “lost” and “found”. In 1844 they were separated for the first time; The Astrologer received the new inventory number 161, but Oedipus was transferred or “weeded out” together with a number of other drawings on wood attributed to Bril, Gaspar Dughet and others (these latter works are of lesser quality). Kongl. Museum 1861: The 1844 inventory no. 161 was retained for the Astrologer, but it seems – judging from a later notation in the catalogue – that in 1863 the Astrologer was in fact “replaced” by a work acquired the same year. Consequently, it never received a new NM inventory number when the Royal Museum became the Nationalmuseum in 1866. However, now the Astrologer and Oedipus ended up together again in the Department of Prints and Drawings, where they were given consecutive numbers in a numerical series seemingly drawn up according to physical loca-tion (Cahier 89, THC, Astrologer 5663, Oedipus 5664). But in 1989, with a new catalogue of the Nationalmuseum’s paintings about to be published, Oedipus was transferred yet again and received its present (painting) inventory number, while the Astrologer was left behind.5. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, NMH 16/2018. The drawing arrived in Sweden with the collec-tion of Nicola Martelli, botanist, chemist, doctor



Napoli 2010Ritorno al Barocco. Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli, catalogo della mostra (Napoli, 2010) a cura di N. Spinosa, II vols. Napoli 2010.Parigi 2010C. Volpi, Bozze del pensiero, Salvator Rosa a Firenze e il disegno come concetto, in Le dessin napolitain. Dal XVI al XVII secolo, actes du Colloque International ed. by F. Solinas and S. Schuetze (Paris, March 2008), Roma 2010, pp. 125–134.Prytz and Eriksson, 2010D. Prytz, J. Eriksson, The Martelli Collection: Further Notes towards its History, in “Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm, XVI, 2009, Stockholm 2010, pp. 77–86.Salomon Langdon 2010X. Salomon H. Langdon, Of Men and Mechanical Doves: Salvator Rosa’s Archytas for Antonio Ruffo, in “Boletin del Museo del Prado” Vol. 28, XLVI, 2010, pp. 22–38.Volpi e Paliaga 2010C. Volpi e F. Paliaga, “Io vel’avviso perché so che n’haverete gusto. Salvator Rosa e Giovan Battista Ricciardi attraverso documenti inediti, Roma 2010.MacPhee 2012S. MacPhee, Bernini’s Beloved. A Portait of Costanza Piccolomini, New Haven and London 2012.Shank 2013J. Shank, What Exactly Was Torricells’s Barometer?, in Science in the age of Baroque, a cura di Raz-Chen Morris, Heidelberg, New York, London, 2013, pp. 161–196.Marty de Cambiare 2014L. Marty de Cambiare, Dessins Napolitains, 1550–1800, Paris 2014.Volpi 2014C. Volpi, Salvator Rosa (1615–1673) “pittore famoso”, Roma 2014.Norlander Eliasson, Prytz, Eriksson e Ekman, 2015Italian Paintings. Three Centuries of Collecting Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Vol. 1, ed. S. Norlander Eliasson, D. Prytz, J. Eriksson e S. Ekman, Stockholm 2015, n. 80, pp. 200–204.Sorrento 2016Il giovane Salvator Rosa. Gli inizi di un grande Maestro del ‘600 europeo, catalogo della mostra (Sorrento, Novembre 2015–Gennaio 2016), a cura di V. Farina.Volpi 2017C. Volpi, Un inedito caravaggesco di Salvator Rosa: i Soldati che giocano a dadi, in “Arte Documento”, 33, 2017, pp. 176–181.Langdon 2018H. Langdon, Salvator Rosa: a Variety of Surfaces, in Almost Eternal. Painting on Stone and Material Innovation in Early Modern Europe, ed. by P. Baker-Bates and E. Calvillo, Leiden 2018, pp. 328–351.

Sohm 1991P. Sohm, Pittoresco, Marco Boschini, his critics and their critique s of painterly brushwork in seventeenth and eighteenth century Italy, Cambridge 1991.Marshall 1993D.R. Marshall, Viviano and Niccolò Codazzi and the baroque architectural fantasy, Milano 1993.Scott 1995J. Scott, Salvator Rosa: His Life and Times, London New Haven 1995.Solinas 1995F. Solinas, Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657): il ritratto di Jan van den Hoecke e l’Orazione di Carlo Dati, in “Bollettino d’Arte”, 92, 1995, pp. 141–164.Herklotz 1996I. Herklotz, Poussin et Pline l’Ancien: à propos des monocromata, in Poussin et Rome, Actes du colloque à l’Acadèmie de France à Rome et à la Biliotheca Hertziana, a cura di O. Bonfait, C.L. Frommel, M. Hochmann e S. Schutze, Paris 1996, pp. 13–30.Solinas 1996F. Solinas, “Giovani ben intendenti del disegno” Poussin e il Museo Cartaceo, in Poussin et Rome, Actes du colloque à l’Acadèmie de France à Rome et à la Biliotheca Hertziana, a cura di O. Bonfait, C.L. Frommel, M. Hochmann e S. Schutze, Paris 1996, pp. 215–240.Lipsia e Harleem 1999Salvator Rosa: Genie der Zeichnung. Studien und Skizzen aus Leipzig und Haarlem, catalogo della mostra (Lipsia and Haarlem, August 1999–Ocotber 1999) ed. H. Guratzsch, Koln 1999.Sapori 2002G. Sapori, Collezionismo e mercato dei disegni a Perugia nel Seicento, in Il Segno che dipinge, a cura di C. Bon Valvassina, Bologna 2002, pp. 47–49.Rosa 2003S. Rosa, Lettere raccolte da L. Festa, a cura di G.G. Borrelli, Napoli 2003.Loire 2006S. Loire, a cura di, Peintures italiennes du XVIIe siècle du Musée du Louvre, Parigi 2006.Firenze 2007“filosofico umore” e “meravigliosa speditezza”. Pittura napoletana del Seicento dalle collezioni medicee, catalogo della mostra (Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi giugno 2007-gennaio 2008) a cura di E. Fumagalli, Firenze 2007.Volpi 2008C. Volpi, Salvator Rosa: nuovi documenti e riflessioni sul primo periodo napoletano e su quello fiorentino, in “Storia dell’Arte”, 120, 2008, pp. 85–119.Paliaga 2009F. Paliaga, Pittori, incisori e architetti pisani nel secolo di Galileo, Pisa 2009.Londra e Fort Worth 2010Salvator Rosa, catalogue of exhibition (London, Dulwich and Fort Worth, September 2010-March 2011) ed. H. Langdon with X. Salomon and C. Volpi, London 2010.

to Florentine times (cf. Mahoney 1977, nos. 31.12; 31.13; 31.14); they have similarities to paintings made by Rosa in Florence, such as The Philosophers’ Grove or Alexander and Diogenes at Althorp House, cf. Volpi 2017, p. 180. The other drawings on panel must, by contrast, be dated to between 1660 and 1670.25. Mahoney 1977, Group 68.26. Incisa della Rocchetta’s drawing in Mahoney 1977, no. 80.16, is inscribed Rosa on the panel and, on the rear, A Sig. Augusto Rosa /Al Sig. Nicolo Simonelli. Rosa was also accustomed to recycle and draw on letters or musical scores; cf. Mahoney 1977.27. On Rosa and Kircher, cf. Volpi 2014, pp. 342–362, with previous bibliography. On the Archita of Taranto painting, see Langdon 2010, pp. 22–38.28. Monconys 1666, p. 457. Niccolò Simonelli, an attendant of Flavio Chigi, was involved in the acquisition for the Chigi family of the works left by Salvetti. He paid the two painters Gregorio Galli and Giovanni Cordiere in 1665 to make copies of the paintings of Viviano Codazzi and Michelangelo Cerquozzi owned by Salvetti, in order to decorate the Villa Versaglia; cf. Marshall 1993, nos. NC 71–82, pp. 412–423. On Costanza Bonarelli and Domenico Salvetti and their collections, cf. MacPhee 2012.29. Monconys 1666, p. 133.30. Shank 2013, pp. 180 ff.31. In a letter of 9 November 1664, Rosa told Ricciardi that Cardinal Flavio Chigi brought the King of France two of his paintings: the Battle now in the Louvre, Paris, and Democritus and Protagoras, today in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, cf. Volpi 2014, nos. 172, 281, pp. 491, 567. On the drawings, cf. Mahoney 1977, group 68, pp. 603–609.32. See the Rocky Landscape in a private collection, Volpi 2014, no. 225, p. 526; Landscape with Soldiers in Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Volpi 2014, no. 243, p. 540; Landscape with Three Philosophers in Dresden, Gemäldegalerie, Volpi 2014, no. 244, p. 541; the two Landscapes with Hermits now in Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Volpi 2014, nos. 291, 292, p. 573.

Bibliography:Monconys 1666B. de Monconys, Journal des Voyages II, Lione 1666.Baldinucci (1681–1728), 1974–1975F. Baldinucci, Notizie de’ Professori del Disegno da Cimabue in qua, Firenze 1681–1728, ed. a cura di F. Ranalli, 1845–1847, rist. anast. a cura di P. Barocchi, Firenze 1974–75, 8 vols.Salerno 1975Salvator Rosa, l’opera completa, Milano 1975.Mahoney 1977M. Mahoney, The Drawings of Salvator Rosa, New York and London 1977.Wallace 1979R.W. Wallace, The etchings of Salvator Rosa, Princeton 1979.


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Caterina Volpi Associate Professor, Sapienza Università di ...nationalmuseum.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:... · Gallerie degli Uffizi, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, no. 19152. Art