Transcript
Page 1: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century ItalyAuthor(s): Caroline VillersSource: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 58. Bd., H. 3 (1995), pp. 338-358Published by: Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Munchen BerlinStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1482818 .

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Page 2: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

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i. Christ washing his disciples' feet, Florentine artist c.1390o. Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Withyham

Caroline Villers

Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

In 1990 four early Italian paintings depicting ,Christ Washing His Disciples' Feet<<, ?Judas's Betrayal<<, the >Flagellation<< and the >Mocking of Christ< were brought to the Conservation De- partment at the Courtauld Institute of Art in Lon- don (Figs. I - 4). Painted on canvas, stuck to ma- hogany panels from which they were beginning to delaminate, covered in both overpaint and dark- ened varnish, they looked at first like copies or transfers of some kind. Closer examination re- vealed them to be rare examples of fourteenth

century Italian painting executed on canvas, unique in terms of their subject matter. This study has two aims: to publish this group of paintings for the first time and to draw attention to a field that has not yet been fully considered either historical- ly or technically. It is an attempt to understand the general character of a particular type of artistic activity and production by organising the data into a meaningful pattern rather than by establish- ing systematic causal connections. This detailed work remains to be done.

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Page 3: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

2. Judas's betrayal, Florentine artist c.1390. Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Withyham

Nothing is known about the original location of the paintings nor their provenance prior to the mid-nineteenth century. In 1849 they were given to the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Withy- ham, Sussex by Edward John Ottley. In 1857 they were still in the Church but by 1902 they had been transferred to the Chapel at Buckhurst Park, seat of Gilbert George Reginald, eighth Earl de la Warr. The Chapel at Buckhurst was built in the i88os so the transfer must have occurred between 188o0 - 1902. The paintings were subsequently re-

turned to the Parish Church at an unknown date and remained there until they were brought to the Courtauld Institute for conservation. The Withy- ham paintings can be identified with a set of four works attributed to >School of Giotto<<, Lot 14, in Warner Ottley's sale held at Fosters's on June 3oth 1847. They were bought in for a mere eleven guin- eas and obviously did not reappear in the sale in i85o. It is assumed that they were bought by Wil- liam Ottley in Florence between 1791-99'. The French invaded Italy in 1796 affording Ottley the

R.W. & S.W.: Historical Notices of the Parish of Withy- ham in the County of Sussex with a description of the Church and Sackville Chapel, 1857; Rev. C.N Sutton: Historical Notes of Withyham, Hartfield & Ashdown

Forest, 1902; A catalogue of Pictures including the Col- lection of Early Italian Masters of the late Warner Ott- ley Esq., Messrs Foster and Son, The Gallery, 54 Pall Mall, 3oth June 1847.

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Page 4: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

3. The Mocking of Christ, Florentine artist c.1390. Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Withyham

opportunity to buy both from Italians who wished to sell works before they were looted as well as from the superintendent of the official French looting. Stylistically, a date in the last decade of the four-

teenth century seems reasonable. The paintings are close in style to the work of Niccolb di Pietro Gerini or Spinello Aretino. Wall paintings obviously pro- vide the general precendent for their composition and format and they may have formed part of a larger narrative cycle, although a narrative cycle of

this type on canvas is without known precedents in the fourteenth century in Italy. Although they are executed on canvas, the paint-

ings resemble panel paintings in technique and this accords well with the instructions Cennino Cen- nini gives for painting a banner where he directs the painter to proceed >>in the same way as anconas ... step by step<<'. The four Withyham paintings all measure approximately one metre square, they are cut on all sides but from the surviving chevron borders it is possible to estimate that very little has

2 Daniel V. Thompson (ed.).: Cennino d'Andrea Cenni- ni, The Craftsman's Handbook, II Libro dell'Arte, I933, reprinted Dover, New York I954, Io3-ro8. The painting technique is analysed and compared with Cennini in Caroline Villers, Lesley Stevenson, Julia Sharp: >>The

Technique of Four Fourteenth Century Italian Paint- ings on Fabric Supports< Proceedings of the L C.O.M. Committee for Conservation, Washington D.C., i99, Volume x, 1o4-og9.

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Page 5: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

4. The Flagellation of Christ, Florentine artist c.1390. Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Withyham

been lost from the pictorial composition. It is not possible to say how wide the decorative borders were originally; there is almost no cusping or dis- tortion of the canvas weave, suggesting that either the paintings were not stretched onto a strainer or that quite a lot of the edge has, in fact, been lost3. Each canvas is composed of two pieces of linen carefully seamed together with a neat strong back- stitch. The seam is very pronounced on the back and excludes all possibility that the fabric could have formed part of a normal panel painting con-

struction. The linen is medium weight, closely woven fabric with an average thread count of 17 x 15 yarns per square centimetre; the individual yarns are rather varied and irregular but the fabric is identical on all four paintings. The paint medium has been identified as egg

tempera and a normal panel painter's range of pigments has been found, including ultramarine and gold leaf. The paint surface has all the charac- teristic features of egg tempera paint although the brushstrokes are somewhat broader and more ev-

3The largest painting, ,The Washing of the Disciples' Feet<< measures 97 x loz cm.; *The Betrayalb, 96 x ioi cm.; ,The Flagellation<<, 91 x 92 cm.;

,The Mocking of Christ<<, 90 x 93 cm.; Cennino d'Andrea Cennini,(as note 2), 1o3 describes nailing canvas to a strainer whereas northern practice was to lace the canvas on. Canvas paintings

could also be supported on wooden panels, a fifteenth century example is Mantegna's ,Ecce Homo<< (Musee Jacquemart-Andre). For a discussion of Netherlandish practice, Helene Verougstraete-Marcq and Roger van Schoute: Cadres et supports dans la peinture Flamande aux I5e et i6e siecles, Heure le Romain 1989, 55-59.

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Page 6: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

5. The Crucifixion, Barnaba da Modena. Victoria & Albert Museum, London

ident than usual, they are applied and blended in such a way as to give all the forms a smooth continuously modelled appearance. The flamboy- ant use of colour-change modelling in the drapery, the lavish amount of ultramarine and decorative mordant gilding all suggest that these were expen- sive works intended to impress their audience. The canvas was prepared for painting with a layer

of unpigmented white calcium sulphate, a mixture of anhydrite (CaSO4) and gypsum (CaSO4 2H20). The nature of this layer has important implications both for their final appearance, especially varnish- ing of the paintings, for their method of display, and for their function. They are rigid, brittle struc- tures not amenable to draping or rolling.

Historical Context Although there is a tendency to classify all early paintings on canvas with a religious subject as

>banners<<, the oldest and most beautiful Italian canvas painting is an altar frontal or dossal attrib- uted to Guido da Siena (Pinacoteca Naziona- le, Siena)4. Consideration of surviving religious works gives an indication of the variety of purpos- es for which fabric, generally linen, but sometimes silk, which is mentioned just as often in the techni- cal literature, might be chosen as a support: these include antependia, shutters, hangings, altarpieces

4Piero Torritti: La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, Genoa 1977, No. 8. It measures 90 x 196 cm.; Fig. 8-9, 24.

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6. Saints Anthony Abbot and Eligius adored by members of a Flagellant Confraternity, Barnaba da Modena.

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

and devotional images. Cennini also lists various decorative and functional items that an artist might paint on fabric, but these should be kept distinct from the discussions. The following sur- vey of surviving works attempts to broaden estab- lished notions of canvas paintings in order to ac- commodate the Withyham paintings. It is unlikely to prove exhaustive, for undoubtedly more canvas paintings currently either unrecognised or forgot- ten remain to be discovered. Many, many more exist only in documents.

The confraternity was the most typical form of lay spirituality in the Trecento and steadily gained in popularity from 1260 on, processions accompa- nied by banners of all kinds were a regular and often spectacular feature of their activities. Hun- dreds, even thousands, of banners must have been in use although very few survive today. Only five fourteenth century examples are known to the author. There are three large double sided banners surviving: one attributed to Barnaba da Modena dated circa 1369-74 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) shows ?the Crucifixion<< on one side and ?Saints Anthony Abbot and Eligius adored by 5 Cennino d'Andrea Cennini,(as note 2), Io4-1o7.

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Page 8: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

7. St. Mary Magdalen with a Crucifix, Spinello Aretino, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

(Gift of the Family of Francis M. Bacon, 1914 [13.175 obv])

members of a Flagellant Confraternity< on the other side (Figs. 5 and 6)6. The second is by Spinel- lo Aretino, dated circa 1375 (Metropolitan Muse- um of Art, New York) and shows >>St. Mary Magdalen with a

Crucifix, on one side and the

>>Flagellation<< of Christ on the other (Figs. 7 and 8). It too was painted for a confraternity probably Flagellant, in Borgo San Sepolcro7. Another, com- missioned by the Confraternity delle Stimmate in Assisi in 1378 (Museo S. Rufino, Assisi), shows >>St.

Francis in Glory< on one side with the >>Crucifix- ion<< above the >>Stigmatisation of St. Francis,<

on the other8. The banners are very big, and form clearly follows function. They are on canvas in order to be lightweight. Three other large canvas paintings can be classi-

fied as >>possibly banners<< of which the largest, best preserved, being still unlined, and oldest of the group is >>St. Helen adoring the Cross with a nun<< by Simone dei Crocefissi circa 1370 (Pinaco-

6 C. Michael Kauffmann: Barnaba da Modena and the Flagellants of Genoa, Victoria and Albert Museum Bul- letin 1966, 12-20. Inv. No. 781-1894, it measures 197 x 128 cm.

7 Federico Zeri and Elisabeth E. Gardner: Italian Paint- ings, A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Florentine School, New York 197I, 42- 46. Acc. No. 13. 175, it measures 175.2 x 199.4 cm. Some

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Page 9: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

8. The Flagellation of Christ, Spinello Aretino, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

(Gift of the Family of Francis M. Bacon, 1914 [13.175 obv])

teca Nazionale Bologna, Figs. 9 and io). On the reverse of this monumental canvas, drawn directly onto the unprepared linen are three rough sketch- es (Fig. ii)9. The others are a >>St. Christopher<<

signed Xphorus pinx 1395 (Montemaggiore di Monte San Pietro)'o and a Madonna and Child with Donors, attributed to a follower of Taddeo di Bartolo (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena)".

time after 1888 the Flagellation side was covered by a lining canvas. When this was removed in 1950, it was still in satisfactory condition, although the head and upper part of Christ's torso was missing. A fragment in the Camposanto Teutonico in the Vatican City has been identified as the missing part.

8Giuseppe Palumbo: Giotto e i Giotteschi in Assisi, Rome 1969 fig. 280, 267-8; Elvio Lunghi: II Museo della Catedrale di San Rufino ad Assisi, Assisi 1987, 150-53, Tav. ioa, iob. It measures 144 x ioi cm.

9 Andrea Emiliani et al: La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bolo- gna, Bologna 1987, 20, Tav. 43. Inv. No. 220, it measures 205 x 135 cm.; Rosalba d'Amico: ?Dipinti su tela a Bolo-

gna tra '3oo e '400. Note su una tipologia artistica?, Strenna Storica Bolognese, XXXVIII, 1988, 139-151, 142- 3, Figs. i, 2.

io Rosalba d'Amico: >Una Tela del Trecento sulla collina Bolognese: II San Cristoforo di Monte Maggiore<<, Strenna Storica Bolognese, XXXVI, 1986, 175-185. No measurements. A comparable fifteenth century work has been published in Alberto Cottino: >An Unpub- lished Painting by Pietro di Giovanni Lianori<<, The Burlington Magazine, CXXXV, 1993, 623-625. Dated 1446, its shape is unusual, 159 x 66 cm.

" Piero Torriti: La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, Genoa 1977, No. 573, Fig. 242, 20o9. It measures 196 x 86 cm.

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9, Io. St. Helen adoring the Cross, Simone dei Crocefissi and Detail (before conservation), showing relief decoration of the crown, halo and border. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna

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Page 11: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

ii. The back of St. Helen adoring the Cross

No one has considered what happened to these banners when they were not in use. They may have been rolled up and stored and Cennini men- tions that if his instructions are followed, particu- larly the minimal use of a gesso ground including honey or starch as a plasticiser, this could be done safely. The inventories of confraternities list nu- merous storage boxes which might serve this pur- pose and in 1378 the Confraternity delle Stimmate

paid for a >>cassa del gonfalone<<2. A document of 1286 charges a member of the Fraternitas Sancte Marie de Misericordia in Cortona to be appointed annually to look after their vexillum at home3s. Alternatively, the banner might have remained on display, either in the Oratory or one of the other rooms belonging to a confraternity with perma- nent premises. For the mid fifteenth century Santi has reconstructed the setting in the sacristy for the

12 Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, (as note 2), 104-105 Vasari states that no ground was applied if works were to be rolled up, but he probably refers to >,hangings<<. Louise S. Maclehouse (ed.): Vasari on Technique 1907, reprint- ed Dover, New York 1960, 236-237. Elvio Lunghi (as note 8), 1987, 152.

3 L. da Pelago: Antica Leggenda della Vita e de' Miracoli di S. Margherita di Cortona Scritta dal di lei Confessore Fr. Giunta Bevegnati, Vol. 2, Lucca 1793, 150-154. The excerpt from the Constitutions of the Fraternitas Sanc- te Marie de Misericordia de Cortona 4th November 1286.

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banner of the Contraternity of San Bernardino, Perugia'4. Giles Arthur has suggested that the altar curtain of the Compagnia di Gesu Pellegrino was also used as a banner's. It is also possible that banners were simply parked in churches either attached to the stalls or on stone stands, proces- sional torches and statues are found >stored& in this way in the Church of S. Fantin and S. Polo, Venice for example. The question of storage would, of course, have

implications for the mounting of the painting and the technique generally. The Withyham paintings have relatively thick gesso grounds and are brittle structures that could never have been repeatedly rolled and unrolled. The >St. Helen adoring the Cross? has a moulded relief decoration in the Saint's crown and halo as well as diamond shape features, possibly made of parchment, appliqued around the border, again this suggests rolling would have been impracticable (Fig. io). If these banners were usually displayed but sometimes carried then, like processional crosses'6, they are strictly speaking multi-functional objects, and this could be the case for other works on canvas too. In order to be portable banners could not have

frames and it is usual for them to have a decorative

border, often bands of geometric patterns, fulfill- ing that visual function'7. It is also somewhat un- likely that they were always conventionally stretched on strainers. Illustrations suggest that some might have hung freely'8 while others were supported horizontally by rods above and below and then lifted up on poles. Gentile Bellini's >Mir- acle at the bridge of San Lorenzo<< (Accademia, Venice) offers one possibility, the design of Trades Union banners another. A painting by Luini in Orford, Suffolk retains fabric loops for receiving such rods, as does an eighteenth century banner in San Vicenzo, Prato'9. If the banners were single sided, then the back must have been covered in some other way when they were carried and the very casual contemporary drawings on the back of >>St. Helen adoring the Cross<< strengthens this hypothesis. All these considerations simply un- derline how little we know about this significant area of artistic production. The surviving Trecento banners are all from the

second half of the fourteenth century (close in date to the technical literature), of course banners were produced both before and after this date and rath- er more survive from the fifteenth century. Peru- gia has a particularly rich collection, some well

14 Francesco Santi: La Nicchia di S. Bernardino a Perugia, Milan 1963, 6-8. Also L. Sebregondi: ?Religious Fur- nishings and Devotional Objects in Renaissance Florence Confraternities<<, in Christian K. Eisen- bichler (ed.): Crossing the Boundaries, Christian Piety and the Arts in Italian Mediaeval and Renaissance Confraternities, Michigan Kalamazoo 1991, 141-160, I5I-152.

i5 Katherine Giles Arthur: ?Cult Objects and Artistic Patronage of the Fourteenth Century Flagellant Con- fraternity of Gesu Pellegrino<< in Timothy Verdon (ed.) and John Henderson (ed.): Christianity and the Renais- sance, Image and Imagination in the Quattrocento, 1990, 336-360, 339.

'6 Dillian Gordon: >Un Crucifix du Maitre de San Fran- cesco<, La Revue du Louvre et des Musees de France, 4, 1984, 253-602, especially 259-260.

'7 Only one example of a chevron patterned border com- parable to the Withyham paintings was found on a canvas painting. Benedetto di Bindo, ?Calvary,,,

No. iii, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, illustrated in Piero Torriti, (as note ii), Figs. 245-247, 212-213. It measures 75 x 50 cm.

i8 Illustrations of banners in the fourteenth century are

unusual. A banner belonging to the Fraternitas di S. Maria della Carita is illustrated in a gradual. Deputazi- oni di Storia Patria per l'Umbria Risultati e prospettive della Ricerca sul movimento dei Disciplinati, Convegno Internazionale di Studio, Perugia 1969, published Peru- gia 1972. Tav. VIII, Venezia Marciana Ms. Lat. II, 119, c; IR. Another square banner showing the Flagellation of Christ is illustrated in the Chronicle of Giovanni Vil- lani; Katherine Giles Arthur, (as note 15), Fig. 137, 349. Gentile Bellini, ?Miracle at the Bridge of San Lorenzo<< (Accademia delle Belle Arti Venice) clearly illustrated as a detail in Patricia Fortini Brown: Venetian Painting in the Age of Carpaccio, 1988 pl. III, 17. Also Adriano Prandi: >Intorno all' iconografia dei Disciplinati<< in Il movimento dei Disciplinati nel settimo centenario dal suo inizio, Perugia 1960, Deputazione di Storia Patria per l'Umbria, Appendix io, Bulletin No. 9, 496-508, Figs. 5-8.

9 Bernardino Luini: >>Holy Family with St. John<<, St. Bartholomew's Church, Oxford, Suffolk, Hamilton Kerr Institute Report No. 1213. M.P. Melega: >La Sten- dardo di Santa Caterina de' Ricci<<, OPD Restauro, Rivista dell' Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratorio di Restauro di Firenze, 1993, 62-64.

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documented. The banner of San Bernardino is interesting in that it is recorded as being executed in 1465 to replace an earlier banner that was de- scribed as

,cancellato e guasto< by 8th May 1463. In

January 1496 the new banner was also described as

,consunto<< and restored2o. Such wear and tear

must account for the disappearance of many ban- ners. The fragility of canvas paintings, which is inherent in the nature of the fabric and its prepara- tion, in comparison with panels, has been noted in relation to Uccello's canvas paintings that hung together with the panel paintings of the Battle of San Romano in Lorenzo dei Medici's bedroom in 1492. In the 1598 inventory they are described as torn and tattered. They have subsequently disap- peared altogether whereas the Battle pieces on panel survive2.2 The fate of other functional objects such as cur-

tains for paintings, church curtains, hangings or funeral palls has clearly been much worse. It is important to underline that although these items are painted fabrics, because of their function the technique is unlikely to have been the same as the technique employed for the type of painted images we are considering, and they must be distin- guished in the technical literature. The principle of technical decorum, the employment of the appro- priate technique for each type of work is central to Trecento craftsmanship. It is misleading to classify any painting on canvas

as a banner. Volpe has drawn attention to the use of canvas for two important altarpieces for signif- icant new locations, in Bologna and Milan in the fourteenth century. In 1393 Lippo di Dalmasio and Giovanni Octonello were commissioned to paint

,unam tabulam magnam cum multisfiguris, cum

coloribus et aureo fino in panno lineo et cum aliis ornamentis circum circa de lignamine deauratis<< for San Petronio, Bologna; the allusion to the framing is notable. In 1389 Giovanni dei Grassi was commissioned to paint what was clearly a tempo- rary high altarpiece for Milan Cathedral. The Ca- thedral was still under construction at that time and by 1396 the canvas had been replaced by a panel painting22. >>The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin<<

(Cloisters, New York) by an unknown Florentine painter has been proposed as the first surviving altarpiece on a fabric support (Fig. 12). Meiss es- tablished that it was the main part of an altarpiece in the Cathedral in Florence for which a huge wooden baldachin was completed in 140223. It re- mained in its place in the Cathedral at least until 1887. However this painting is so unusual in form and iconography that it seems possible that in origin it had a different function, perhaps funer- ary. The strongly intercessionary subject, the ver- nacular inscription and the fact that it shows a single family could support this hypothesis. There are other early fifteenth century works in

Padua and Bologna that also look like altarpieces. Middeldorf published two paintings of the Ma- donna and Child with Saints, crowned by God the Father together with a group of men and women that he attributed to Niccol6 di Piero24. One is dated 14o8 and the other 1419. They are large works associated respectively with the Confraternity of Santa Maria dei Servi and the Scuola della Carita. The 1408 painting describes itself in its inscription as an >ancona<< a term that Cennini uses for panel painting and Middeldorf takes to support his hy- pothesis that it is an altarpiece, although this need

20o Francesco Santi: Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria Di- pinti, Sculture e Oggetti dei Secoli xv-xvi, 1985, 41-42, Inv. no. 28, it measures 349 x 221 cm. Also Francesco Santi: Gonfaloni Umbri delRinascimento, Perugia 1976.

21Norman Brommelle >St. George and the Dragon<<, Museums Journal, July, 1959, 87-95, 88.

22 Carlo Volpe: >>La Pittura Gotica - Da Lippo di Dal- masio a Giovanni da Modena<< in La Basilica di San Petronio, Volume I, 1983, 219, 288 n. 14. Also Rosalba d'Amico: >>Dipinti su tela a Bologna tra '3oo e '400.

Note su una tipologia artistica<, (as note 9), 139-141. 23 Millard Meiss: >>An Early Altarpiece from the Cathe- dral of Florence<<, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulle- tin, xii, 1954, 302-315 Acc.no 5357. It measures 239.4 x 153 cm. Frederico Zeri and Elisabeth E Gardner, (as note 7), 56-6o. 24Ulrich Middeldorf: >Due Tele Padovane del Primo Quattrocento<<, Bollettino del Museo Civico di Padova, Vol. 2, 1962, 14-24. The paintings measure 203 x o107 cm and 204 x 189 cm.

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12. The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin, Florentine artist c.1400. Metropolitan Museum of Art,

The Cloisters Collection 1953 (53.37), New York

not necessarily be the case25. Two works by Pietro di Giovanni Lianori may confirm the idea that painting on canvas for a variety of purposes was more common in Northern Italy than other areas. They show the Madonna and Child between standing saints and are clearly based on wall paint- ing prototypes. One is dated 1412 and comes from the Oratory of the Beata Vergine della Gazza,

Fiesso di Castenaso and is now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna26; the other dateable to circa 1412, is in a private collection27. The most exceptional fabric supported altarpiece

of the early fifteenth century is, of course, the painting by Antonio Vivarini and Giovanni d'Alemagna, dated 1446, for the Sala dell'Albergo of the Scuola Grande della Cariti~ in Venice28.

251 am grateful to Dr. Christa Gardner for pointing this out to me.

26 Illustrated in II Tramonto del Medioevo a Bologna, II Cantiere di San Petronio Exhibition catalogue, Bologna 1987, No. 13, 109-10. It measures 130 x 170 cm.

27 Illustrated in Carlo Volpe, (as note 22), Fig. 263, 270. The painting was in the Gozzadini Sale, 1906. No meas- urements given.

28 Sandra Moschini Marconi: Galleria dell'Accademia di Venezia, Opere d'Arte dei Secoli xiv e xv, 1955, pl.36, 37-

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13. Madonna of Humility, Lippo di Dalmasio. National Gallery, London

Interestingly it seems to be the semi secular loca- tion of confraternity rooms that prompts the use of canvas and here there is no question of the work being either temporary or portable. In technique it is identical to a panel painting.

Large images of the Virgin without surrounding saints form another category of canvas painting in Northern Italy. Their precise function and loca- tion is uncertain. Two >>Madonnas of Humility<< survive from what must have been a substantial

38. A religious work in a secular setting, the Doge's apartments, is also an early example of the new tech- nique of oil on canvas in the fifteenth century. Lorenzo Lazzarini: >>La Pala Barbarigo di Giovanni Bellini; Le Analisi di Laboratorio<<, Quaderni della Soprintenden- za ai Beni Artistici e Storici di Venezia, 3, 1983.

29 Andrea Emiliani et al: La Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bolo- gna, Bologna 1987, 41. Inv. no. 786. It measures 16o x 96 cm. Illustrated in II Tramonto del Medioevo a Bologna, (as note 26), No.6, 94-95. The measurements given here are 175 x 104 cm. Martin Davies, revised Dillian Gordon:

The Early Italian Schools, National Gallery London 1988, 57-58. Inv. No. 752, it measures iio x 87 cm. For Lippo di Dalmasio's works on canvas, see Rosalba d'Amico: >>Dipinti su tela a Bologna tra '3oo e '400. Note su una tipologia artistica<<, (as note 9), 140-142. Malvasia lists many such works, C. C. Malvasia Felsina Pittrice, 1678, Giovanni Pietro Cavazonni Zanotti (ed.), Bologna 1841, Vol. i, 31-37. In 1394 he executed a St. George >>more consueto in panno lineo<<, Carlo Volpe, (as note 22), 219. This rather contrasts with the evidence from Neri di Bicci's accounts which list only nine

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Page 16: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

production by Lippo di Dalmasio (Fig. 13)29 and there is another by Fra Paolo da Modena, which like many works on canvas used to be considered a transfer3o. There is also a >>Coronation of the Vir- gin?< by Simone dei Crocefissi3'. In the category of smaller devotional works the only example is the >>Madonna and Child<< by Giusto de Menabuoi in the Sagrestia dei Canonici in the Cathedral in Pad- ua32. A large proportion of the surviving Nether- landish >>tiichlein<< are small devotional images and they find a place in both ecclesiastical and domes- tic settings. Generalising rather loosely from the contents of Florentine homes in the fifteenth cen- tury, this may well have been true in Italy as well33. By this time Netherlandish paintings were of course widely disseminated in Italy, and the ques- tion of imitating fashionable prototypes becomes an issue. The works considered so far vary greatly in size

and function, but the Withyham paintings do not fall into an established category. They compare most closely, in size, form and content with four works on canvas by the Master of the Franciscan Tempera Paintings, dateable to before 1336. These

portray the >>Virgin and Child between Mary Magadalen and St. Clare<<, >>The Stigmatisation of St. Francis,, >>The Flagellation of Christ< and >>The Crucifixion<<34. Although some have a narra- tive content they are not a narrative cycle. Bologna suggests that these together with lost scenes may have been joined together in a single continuous hanging35. He also draws attention to a document- ed commission in 1367 from Matteo Giovanetti for fifty six scenes from the life of St. Benedict on >>panni di lino<< for the College in Montpellier founded by Urban V. They cannot have been very large because on 27th April, three days before the Pope left Avignon for Rome, a quadriga took the canvases from Avignon to Montpellier36. The pur- pose of these interesting paintings is not known, but they were not necessarily a continuous narra- tive cycle. The Withyham paintings depict scenes from

Christ's Passion; it is possible that they had a

special liturgical function. The altar frontal or dos- sal attributed to Guido da Siena shows the Trans- figuration, Entry into Jerusalem and Raising of Lazarus, and was probably used during the Lent

works on canvas four of which are curtains, and could support the hypothesis that this technique was espe- cially common in north Italy. Bruno Santi (ed.): Neri di Bicci: Le Ricordanze, Pisa 1976, 68 n. 134; 119 n. 231; 382.3 n. 717; 398 n. 795.

30 Rodolfo Pallucchini: I Dipinti della Galleria Estense di Modena, Rome 1945, 40, Fig. 3. Robert Gibbs: Tomaso da Modena, Cambridge 1989, 222-223, Fig. Io5b. It meas- ures 140 x 140 cm.

3iLuigi Serra: Arte nelle Marche, Museo Civico, Pesaro 1935, 301, Fig. 5oo.

32 Lucio Grossato (ed.): Da Giotto a Mantegna, exhibi- tion in Palazzo della Ragione, Padua 1974, Cat. No. 5I. It measures ioo x 70 cm.

33John Kent Lydecker: The Domestic Setting of the Arts in Renaissance Florence, Johns Hopkins University Ph. D. Thesis 1987, Facsimile reprint University Microfilms International Ann Arbor 1990.

34 Ferdinando Bologna: I Pittori alla Corte Angioina di Napoli, 1966, 285-40, Figs. xvii-xx. The paintings meas- ure 130 x 135 cm. They are in a private collection. Bolo- gna also discusses references to Giotto's documented painting on canvas and suggests a link, 237-8.

35 Ferdinando Bologna, (as note 34), 236. 36 Johann Peter Kirsch: Die Riickkehr der Pdipste Urban

V. und Gregor XI. von Avignon nach Rom, Paderborn 1898, 77-78.

37 Piero Torriti, (as note ii), No. 8, Fig. 8-9, 24. 38 Millard Meiss: French Painting in the time of Jean de Berry, the late fourteenth century and the patronage of the Duke, 1967, Vol. i, 99-107; Vol. ii, plates I-5. It is painted on white silk.

39 Molly Teasdale Smith: >>The use of grisaille as a Lenten Observance<<, Marsyas, VIII, 1959, 43-54. Fig.2, illus- trates a Lenten hanging from Huesca, Spain, ca. 1400.

40 Later but well preserved examples of these works are found in El Retablo y la Sarga de San Eutropio de el Espinar, Instituto de Conservacion y Restauracion de Bienes Culturales Madrid, 1992; C. Levenfeld Laredo: >>Las pinturas sobre anjeo o sargas material y tecnica?, 154-157 and J. Garcia Gomez-Tejedori, ?La sarga carac- teristicas tecnicas y estado de

conservacion,, 16o-165; O. Schmid: St. Katherina Wolfegg, Ein Barockjuwel erzdhlt, Bergatraute, Eppe 1993, 76-78; Emil D. Bosshard: >Tiichleinmalerei - eine billige Ersatztech- nik?<< Zeitschrift fiir Kunstgeschichte, 45, 1982, 31-42, discusses an enormous Lenten hanging in Liechtenstein with 24 scenes from the Life of Christ. Maria Renacher: >>Painted Lenten Veils and Wall Hangings in Austria< in Conservation within historic buildings, International Institute for Conservation Congress, 1980, 142-148, dis- cusses the oldest examples in Austria dated 1457 with scenes from the Old and New Testament.

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Page 17: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

or Easter liturgy37. In northern Europe, the Pare- ment of Narbonne is a work of this type38 and other similar examples have been found in French and English churches39. In Spain and southern Germany a special type of painted covering evolved to be displayed in front of and so hide the main altarpiece during Lent. Surviving >Hun- gertiicher< or

,sargas<< are monumental works un-

furled from rollers in the ceiling above the altar4?. No similar examples survive in Italy, but it has been suggested that a lost Crucifixion on canvas circa 1400 by Jacopo di Paolo hung in front of the sculpted Bolognini altarpiece in San Petronio, Bo- logna and functioned liturgically in this way41. Normally Lenten paintings are muted in their col- our scheme, or grisaille, and the technique of the Withyham paintings, including lavish use of gold, ultramarine and bright colour, seems to exclude this type of Lenten function. Curtains were, of course, also liturgically impor-

tant on a daily basis as they were hung around the altar and choir and the altar was closed to the congregation's view during the miracle of Tran- substantiation in the Mass. It seems that during the later Middle Ages they were sometimes painted with stories from the Old and New Testament42. The evidence is more comprehensive for practice north of the Alps, but at least one document records this practice in Fourteenth century Italy43. However, as already stated, the rigid character of

the Withyham paintings also excludes their use as draped curtains. Altarpieces too were frequently covered by curtains or hangings, and these could be painted either with patterns or with images. The contract for the San Pier Maggiore Altarpiece, National Gallery, London goes into considerable detail, listing the rings, cord and pigments needed for the curtain44. One for the Confraternity of Gesu Pellegrino bore an image of the Flagellation of Christ45 and in the fifteenth century Neri di Bicci records a range of subjects among the altar curtains commissioned from him46. Nova has dis- cussed the development of fabric supported paint- ings as altarpiece shutters in northern Italy47. Or- gans were also covered either by a type of painted roller blind or by shutters with fabric supported paintings48 and it is possible that the Withyham paintings also formed some sort of shutter or door, perhaps to cover a special shrine or sculp- ture. Their unusual format would then be ex- plained by the size and shape of the item they were enclosing. However, the fact remains that the general proto-

type for the Withyham paintings is provided by fresco cycles. Iconographically and stylistically there are some similarities with the battered rem- nants of the Passion Cycle in the Giochi e Bastari Chapel in the Badia, Florence49 and the Withyham paintings are quite likely simply to be substitutes for wall paintings, it is after all in this context that

4iRosalba d'Amico (as note 9), 148. 42Joseph Braun: Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtli-

chen Entwicklung, Munich 1924, II, 133-147, 166-171. Joseph Braun: Die liturgischen Paramente in Gegen- wart und Vergangenheit, Freiburg 1924, 233-6. Franz Bock: Geschichte der liturgischen Gewander des Mitte- lalters, Bonn 1859-1871, Vol. 3, 135-145.

43 Quoted by Franz Bock, (as note 42), Vol. 3, 137. 44David Bomford, Jill Dunkerton, Dillian Gordon,

Ashok Roy: Art in the Making: Italian Painting before 140oo, National Gallery, London 1990, Appendix III, 197-200, especially 198, 16-17.

45 Katherine Giles Arthur, (as note i5), 339, 356, item io8. 46 Bruno Santi (ed.): Neri di Bicci: Le Ricordanze, (as note 29).

47 Alessandro Nova: >>Hangings, Curtains and Shutters of Sixteenth Century Lombard Altarpieces<< in Eve Bor- sook and Fiorella Suberbi Gioffredi (ed.): Italian Altar- pieces 1250-1550, Oxford 1994, 177-200.

48 Eugenio Casalini: La SS. Annunziata di Firenze, Studi e documenti sulla chiesa e il convento, Florence 1971, 27- 47. Vasari describes organ shutters >in tela< by Fra Angelico for S. Maria Novella. A later example of an organ cover of the roller blind type survives in place in the Sala del Mappamondo, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. The Transfiguration by Girolamo Genga in Museo Opera del Duomo, Siena functioned in this way. The only surviving fourteenth century canvases painted in northern Europe are doors to an altarpiece. Discussed in Diane Wolfthal: The Beginnings of Netherlandish Canvas Painting:

40oo--53o, Cambridge 1989, 5.

49 Attributed to the >,Follower of Nardo di Cione<< in Richard Offner: A Corpus of Florentine Painting, Sec- tion IV, Vol.II, the Fourteenth Century, Nardo di Cione, 98-1oo, Pls. XXVIII, XXXA-XXXIA. Also photograph Soprintendenza, Florence 14219.

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Page 18: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

Vasari discusses the origins of painting on canvas in his life of Jacopo Bellini and Bellini's work for the Venetian scuoleso. It is also tempting to specu- late concerning a possible connection with one of the Florentine ConfraternitiesI'. In gathering together surviving works on canvas

we find, disregarding for a moment the chance element in their survival, that a large proportion are directly linked with lay confraternities and the experiential piety that they fostered. Many confra- ternities did not have permanent premises and were often users of other people's halls and rooms, where they would need to put things up on occa- sions. Hueck has recently shown that a confrater- nity met beneath Duccio's panel painting, the >Rucellai Madonna<< which originally hung in the transept of Santa Maria NovellaS'. Easily move- able works on canvas might therefore be conven- ient, or be considered appropriate in the semi- secular setting of a Confraternity's permanent lo- cation and suite of rooms. Secular paintings on canvas were also current in domestic settings, but since none at all survive for the Fourteenth Centu- ry they have not been brought into the argument. On their own the four subjects treated in the With-

yham paintings do not form a coherent group and perhaps, at least, a Crucifixion and Last Supper could be expected to be included in the cycle, but in the context of the Maundy Thursday rites of the penitential confraternities, they could have special significance. Maundy Thursday was one of the chief days of assembly and liturgical significance for these groups and the focus of the devotions included a re-

enactment of the scene from the Last Supper after Judas has left, when Christ demonstrated his humil- ity by washing his Disciples' feet53. Services obvi- ously varied but generally, as the members arrived they would recite a passage from the Passion. Then the Office was introduced by penitential psalms which were followed by flagellation. Afterwards each member asked his brother's forgiveness and embraced him in a gesture of reconciliation. Finally the Governor of the Confraternity knelt and washed and kissed the feet of the brothers and they then all shared a simple meal commemorating the Last Supper. The emphasis of the Confraternities was on ex-

periential piety and penance through self mortifi- cation and the painful, literal illustrations of Christ's Mocking and Flagellation are typical of this spirit. They can also be matched by surviving Holy Week sermons that, by asking the audience to contemplate each detail of Christ's Passion, brought the brothers to a sense of their own worthlessness and need to atone54. The dramatic lamentation laude have the same emphasis unfold- ing the story this time through the eyes of Christ's lamenting mother encouraging the brothers to empathise with her experience. The evolution of the custom of representing these laude to the pub- lic on Good Friday could form an alternative con- text for these paintings55. If such a broad hypothetical framework is ac-

ceptable the Withyham paintings might be imag- ined as a coherent group completed by the Cruci- fix that was the centre of the Confraternities' de-

5o Louise S. Maclehouse (ed.), (as note 12), 236-7. Also Colin Eisler: The Genius of Jacopo Bellini, The Com- plete Paintings and Drawings, 1989, 521-523, Figs. 27-30, 524-526.

5 Adriano Prandi: >Intorno all' iconografia dei Dis-

ciplinati,, in Il movimento dei Disciplinati nel set-

timo centenario dal suo inizio, (as note 18), 496-508. Also Adriano Prandi: >>Arte Figurativa per le Con- fraternita dei

Disciplinati,, in Risultati e Prospettive

della Ricerca sul Movimento dei Disciplinati, (as note 18).

52Gli Uffizi: La Maesta di Duccio Restaurata, Studi e Ricerche 6, 1990, 33-46.

53 Ronald Weissman: Ritual Brotherhood in Renaissance Florence, 1992, Chapter 2.

54John Henderson: >>Penitence and the Laity< in Timo- thy Verdon and John Henderson (ed.), (as note i8), gives an example of a vivid Holy Week sermon by Giovanni Nesi, 231-249, 242.

55 A Terruggia: 4In quale momento I Disciplinati hanno dato origine a loro teatro<, in II movimento deiDiscipli- nati nel settimo centenario dal suo inizio, (as note 18), 434-59; C. Naselli: >Notizie sui Disciplinati in Sicilia< in Il movimento dei Disciplinati nel settimo centenario dal suo inizio, (as note 18), 317-327, describes use of >>misteri<<, wooden or papier mache figures representing the Passion; C. Barr: >>From Devozione to Rappresen- tazione: Dramatic elements in the Holy Week Laude of Assisi< in Christian K. Eisenbichler (ed.), (as note 14), 11-32.

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Page 19: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

votions and finding their logic in the activities of the confraternity brothers' rites.

Technical Context An important aspect of the study of the Withyham paintings has been the opportunity to establish at least a starting point for the technical history of painting on fabric supports in Italy. It is now possible to compare it with the technique of paint- ing on panel and to characterise this technical tradition in contrast to Netherlandish practice. The two most important sources for painting

techniques around 14oo are Cennino Cennini's 4II Libro dell'Arte<< and Le Begue's compilation >De Coloribus Diversis Modis Tractatis<<. Both give rather full descriptions of painting on fabric56. The Le Begue manuscript is an encyclopaedic project gathering together contemporary and ancient sources, its practical, didactic purpose is clear from the Dizionario dei Sinonimi. Some information on stretching fabric is found in Eraclius Book III but the most important passages on technique are in Alcherius' contribution. Alcherius was a Milanese artist travelling between Paris and Milan as well as other north Italian cities. He collected informa- tion from the most important artists of the ?Inter- national Style<<. In 1398 on 28th July he acquired detailed instructions from Jacques Coene and on 8th August from Antonio Compendio, both in Paris. During the following decade he obtained recipes from other artists working in Italy such as Federico/Theodore, a Flemish painter active in Paris, who was well informed about English meth- ods and had been in Bologna, where Giovanni da Modena had copied the information. Alcherius also copied passages from the Theophilus manu- script, St. Peter Audemar and Eraclius. In 1411, in

Paris, probably commissioned by Le Begue, he revised his text. It has been suggested that Al- cherius had a special interest in painting on fabric as

,>tela linea sindone< is consistently listed among

supports (291, 293-6) and the description of gilding on cloth gives an unusual degree of explanatory detail concerning brushes, sizeing and the crum- pling of the cloth, that could only derive from first hand experience. Cennini's

,II Libro dell'Arte< was written in the

1390's, possibly in Padua, although it is generally taken to represent Tuscan practice. Cennini claims for linen that ?it is more pleasant to work on than on panel, because the cloth holds the moisture a little and it is just as if you were working in fresco, that is on a wall<<7. Clearly he too had first hand experience. Cennini also distinguishes between the technique for painting a banner and the tech- nique used for painted wall hangings and, perhaps, curtains for paintings. For hangings, the painting was executed directly on the fabric, without a ground, in ?washes of colour<< and presumably not varnished; black and blue coloured fabrics could be used and a wide range of subject matter is alluded to58. It has already been noted that the technique of

the Withyham painting compares closely with Cennini's instructions for painting banners. The principal divergences are in the exact nature of the ground which is firstly a mixture of calcium sul- phate anhydrite and gypsum rather than gesso sot- tile and secondly, is more thickly applied than Cennini implies and in the use of oil rather than water gilding. A white ground layer has been found in the few Trecento canvas paintings exam- ined so far59, and a simple calcium sulphate/glue ground continues to be widely used during the

56 Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, (as note 2). M. Merrifield (ed.): Original Treatises on the Arts of Painting, Vol. i, 1849, reprinted Dover, New York 1967, 1-321; Bianca Silvia Tosatti-Soldano: >>La tabula de vocabulis sinoni- mis et equivocis colorum ms. lat. 6741 della Biblio- theque Nationale di Parigi in relazione a Giovanni Alcherio<<, ACME Annali della Facolta di Lettere e Filosofia dell' Universita degli Studi di Milano, XXXVI, II-III, 1983, 129-188.

57 Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, (as note 2), 104. 58 Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, (as note 2), 105. 59Intercession of Christ and the Virgin (Cloisters, New York); Spinello Aretino Banner (Museum of Fine Art, New York); Madonna of Humility, Lippo Dalmasio (National Gallery, London); Barnaba da Modena Ban- ner (Victoria & Albert Museum, London).

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Page 20: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

fifteenth and early sixteenth century on fabric sup- ports6o. The ground layer is absolutely critical in determining the final surface appearance and tex- ture of the painting and in enabling it to be var- nished: ?You must varnish them afterward, be- cause sometimes these banners which are made for churches get carried outdoors in the rain, and therefore, you must take care to get a good clear varnish and when you varnish them, varnish the diadems and gold grounds a little

too<<. An oil-

resin vernice liquida would have imparted a uni- formly saturated and glossy appearance. In the normal course of events panel paintings were var- nished too, although perhaps differentially ex- cluding the gilding, and the final surface effect would have been very similar. If this can be accepted as standard Italian practice

there would have been a striking contrast between the appearance of Netherlandish and Italian paint- ings on fabric supports. Netherlandish >>tiichleinw were first categorised by Sch6ne in 193862, and more recently Wolfthal has catalogued 94 works for the period 1400 - 1530, executed principally in this technique63. The defining characteristics of the technique are the use of sized but unprimed linen; a glue or gum binding medium for the paint; the evident texture of the support and finally the absence of varnish. Varnish would destroy their visual intention. Just as the technique of egg tempera painting differs from oil painting on panel, so do the techniques adopted for fabric supports underlining the existence of two essen-

tially unrelated technical traditions north and south of the Alps. Interestingly, Eastlake postulated a link between

Netherlandish and north Italian technical practice on the basis of documentary evidence. He suggest- ed that there was a link between a Venetian manu- script in Treviso that describes Fra Paolo working ?in the German manner<< on canvas in Venice and Treviso in I1335 and Theodoric's account of English practice passed on to Alcherius in Bologna around 140064. This has confusingly been extended to in- clude Cennini's description of painting hangings in ?washes of colour<<6. Although there is insuffi- cient evidence entirely to dismiss Eastlake's hy- pothesis, it is not supported by surviving works. Eastlake did not know of any early Italian paint- ings on canvas with which to compare the docu- mentary evidence. He was of course familiar with Ottley's collection, but if he saw the Withyham paintings he presumably dismissed them as trans- fers. It is also argued here that as well as being vague, the cited documents do not compare like with like; there is a clear distinction between the technique for painting images on canvas, banners or otherwise, and the technique for large scale essentially functional or decorative work. Painters may have done both types of work, or the catego- ries may have overlapped, for example in the case of painted curtains for altarpieces, but in the four- teenth century the principle of technical decorum, the correct materials and technique for the type of work in hand prevailed. At least in Andalucia66

60o Arthur Lucas, Joyce Plesters: >>Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne<, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 2, 1978, 25-45, 38-39. M. Matteini, A. Moles, >>Indagini sui mate- riali e le stesure pittoriche<<, La Nascita di Venere e la Annunciazione del Botticelli restaurate, Gli Uffizi, Stu- di e Ricerche, 4, 1987, 75.

6, Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, (as note 2), 104. For other instances of varnishing 109, ii8-II9 and 122. This aspect of fourteenth century painting technique has been much misunderstood. See also Jill Dunkerton, Jo, Kirby, Ray- mond White: >Varnish and early Italian tempera paint- ings<<, Cleaning, Retouching and Coatings, Preprints of the contributions to the International Institute for Con- servation Congress, Brussels 1990, 63-70. For varnish in relation to Mantegna's canvas paintings, Keith Chris- tiansen: >Some observations on Mantegna's painting techniques<<, Jane Martineau (ed.): Andrea Mantegna

Exhibition Catalogue, London, New York 1992,

69-70. 62 Wolfgang Sch6ne: Dieric Bouts und seine Schule, Ber-

lin, Leipzig 1938, 82-83. Listed 26 works. 63 Diane Wolfthal, (as note 48); and Emil D. Bosshard, (as

note 40). 64 Sir Charles Lock Eastlake: Methods and Materials of

the Great Schools and Masters, Vol. I 1847, reprinted Dover, New York I960, 90-92, 94-100. 1o6-7 discusses the use of size to temper colours that can be used on any support and subsequently varnished. Also Michelange- lo Muraro: Paolo da Venezia, Pennsylvania 1970, 23-25, note 73, p. 75.

65 Rosalba d'Amico, (as note 9), 149. 66Judith Berg Sobr6: Behind the Altar Table: the Devel-

opment of the Painted Retable in Spain i35o-I500, Co- lumbia 1989, 12-13, I82-I83.

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and the Netherlands67 cloth painters were organ- ised into separate guilds. That demarcation could be difficult is evident from the disputes between painters and cloth painters in Bruges in the fif- teenth century. The same problems do not seem to be documented in Italy. Prior to the technical examination of the Withy-

ham paintings it was not possible to confirm Cennini's account of painting on canvas or to describe typical fourteenth century Italian prac- tice. This model also has implications for an inter- pretation of technical developments in the fif- teenth century. Mantegna is often cited as the first painter frequently to employ fabric as a painting support. The corollary to this observa- tion being that it is so unusual that this must represent a personal preference and, taking the argument further, his interest in the painted por- trayal of surface textures must have extended to the texture of the support as well. This approach emphasises all the wrong aspects of the technique. Consideration of the Withyham paintings and re- lated fourteenth century works has demonstrated that fabric might be selected routinely for a variety of tasks. Although no single rationale has emerged, size, cost, mobility, location, and dura- bility all played a part. It is also clear that the choice of support was the patron's not the paint- er's and this is also true for Mantegna's commis- sions from the Gonzaga and the d'Este families, for example68. If there is anything remarkable it should be sought in the reasons for the patron's choice. The truly unusual feature of Mantegna's paint-

ing technique is its innovatively experimental ver-

satility. The recent exhibition catalogue was not the first to point out that Mantegna was ex- ceptional in employing both typically Italian and typically Netherlandish painting techniques, but it did underline and clarify the matter by providing more technical data69. A further conclu- sion can be drawn from this data and that is that Mantegna was also exceptional, possibly unique, in working variations on these two technical themes. In doing so he produced paintings with unusually subtle and varied surface finishes that excited both interest and confusion among his contemporaries. This is strikingly evident in the correspondence concerning both Perugino and Costa's commissions for Isabella d'Este7o. The need to enquire about the medium; the misunder- standing that arose over it and the ground layer; the discussion of varnish and surface finish would have been unimagineable at the be- ginning of the fifteenth century when the sense of technical decorum represented by Cennini's book still prevailed. To assess this change further a more detailed consideration is required of the signifi- cance of technical originality as an aspect of the artist's skill and as a desirable commodity to pa- trons. The ability to paint in the fashionable tech- nique >>alla Fiammingha<< was clearly one of Man- tegna's skills that was valued by the Mantuan court. Mantegna was also independently-minded in not

changing from painting in egg tempera to oil on canvas. Having clarified traditional practice and the widespread use of fabric to support painting this development can now be seen to be the most significant technical change in the latter half of the

67 Diane Wolfthal, (as note 48), 6-8. 68Paul Kristeller: Andrea Mantegna, London 1901, 477, Doc. 29, July 6th 1477; 484-485, Doc.5o 16th July 1491. Practical considerations are uppermost. Fiorenzo Ca- nuti: II Perugino, Siena 1931, Vol. II, 208, Doc. 305, 22nd September 1500oo; 21o, Doc. 312, 22nd November 15o2. See also Arthur Lucas, Joyce Plesters, (as note 6o), 38.

69 Jane Martineau (ed.), (as note 61), 68-88. Paul Kristeller: Andrea Mantegna, London 1901, 123-6 cites Jacopo Bel- lini as Mantegna's example, Bellini's paintings on can- vas have not been analysed. An interesting technical comparison between Mantegna's grisaille paintings and

drapery studies on fine linen, for example by Fra Bar- tolommeo, has not been noted in the literature. Chris Fischer (ed.): Disegni di Fra Bartolommeo e della sua scuola, Florence 1986, 32-33, Fig. 5.

70Fiorenzo Canuti: II Perugino, Siena 1931, Vol. II, 211, Doc. 315, 19th January 1503; 236, Doc. 376, 3oth June 1505; Doc .378, ioth August 15o5. Paul Kristeller, (as note 69), 494, Doc. 72, Ist December 150o4. Clifford M. Brown: >>New documents concerning Andrea Mantegna and a note regarding Jeronimus de Conradis Pictor<<, The Burlington Magazine, CXI, 1969, 538-44, 542.

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Page 22: Paintings on Canvas in Fourteenth Century Italy

fifteenth century and it seems to occur in Venice in the 1480's, perhaps forty years earlier than in the Netherlands, in the context of secular decorative schemes7'. In conclusion, consideration of the historical

and technical context of the Withyham paint- ings has drawn attention to an important category of artistic production in medieval Italy. Clearly canvas, as a painting support, was used for a variety of purposes in the four-

teenth century and this continued on into the fifteenth century. Discussion of technique has emphasised the distinctiveness of technical tradi- tions north and south of the Alps and the conse- quently striking visual contrast between Nether- landish and Italian canvas paintings. This paper has tended towards enumeration rather than ex- planation, it is hoped, however, that having begun to chart the terrain further exploration will now proceed.

7'Caroline Villers: >>Artists' Canvases<<, Proceedings of the L.C.O.M. Committee for Conservation, Ottawa 1981, 81/2/1-12. Giovanni Bellini's painting for Isabella d'Este was in oil, whereas Mantegna never fully adopt-

ed the technique. Susanne Delbourgo, Jean Paul Rioux, Elisabeth Martin: >>Etude analytique de la mati re pic- turale<<, Annales du Laboratoire de Recherche des musees du Louvre, 1975, 21-28.

Photo credits: Photographs reproduced courtesy of the Conservation and Technology Department, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London; courtesy of the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; courtesy of the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna; courtesy of the Cloisters Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; courtesy of the Trustees of the

National Gallery, London.

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