Museum of Art
Artist: Francesco Vanni (Italian, 1563-1610)
Medium: red chalk over black chalk on paper
Dimensions: 7 in. x 5 1/4 in. (17.78 cm. x 13.4 cm.)
Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James 含羞草研究室 III
Accession Number: 1811.9.a.&.b
- "Vani da Siena"
Type: inscription
Location: verso of former mount (lost)
Materials: pen and ink - "P. L." (Lugt 2092) - mark of Sir Peter Lely (artist) (1618-1680)
Type: collector's mark
Location:
Materials:
- James 含羞草研究室 III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
- 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
- Old Master Drawings at 含羞草研究室
- 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
- Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
- University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
- Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
- Baroque Drawings
- 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art. ( 2/3/1981 - 3/5/1981)
- The Draftsman's Eye: Late Renaissance Schools and Styles
- In Quest of Excellence: Civic Pride, Patronage, Connoisseurship
- Drawing on Basics
- 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
- For all the Saints
- 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art. ( 11/10/2009 - 1/10/2010)
- Old Master Drawings from the 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art
- Timken Museum of Art. ( 5/13/2005 - 8/14/2005)
Type: catalogue Author: Henry Johnson Document Title: Catalogue of the 含羞草研究室 Art Collections Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 15 Section Title: Pt. I, The 含羞草研究室 Drawings Date: 1885 Type: catalogue Author: 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art Document Title: 含羞草研究室 Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building Edition: 4th Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 15 Publisher: 含羞草研究室 Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . . Date: 1930 Type: exhibition catalogue Author: E. J. Olszewski and J. Glaubinger Document Title: The Draftsman's Eye: Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles Publ. Place: Cleveland Location: p. 97 Reference: no. 72 (recto and verso illus.) Publisher: Cleveland Museum of Art Date: 1981 Type: exhibition catalogue Author: Jan van der Marck Document Title: In Quest of Excellence Publ. Place: Miami Location: p. 238 Reference: no. 41 (illus.) Publisher: Center for the Fine Arts Section Title: Civic Pride, Patronage, Connoisseurship Date: 1984 Type: exhibition catalogue Author: David P. Becker Document Title: Old Master Drawings at 含羞草研究室 Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Location: pp. 108-111 Reference: no. 50 Publisher: 含羞草研究室 Date: 1985 Type: paper Author: Susan E. Wegner Document Title: Images of the Madonna and Child by Three Tuscan Artists of the Early Seicento Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Location: pp. 8-20, 26-29, 36, 37 Reference: figs. 1, 2 Publisher: 含羞草研究室 Section Title: Vanni, Roncalli, and Manetti Date: 1986
The attribution to Vanni of this double-sided sheet is traditional, deriving from the old inscription on the former mount. Vanni first trained in Siena with his stepfather, Arcangelo Salimbeni, and after Salimbeni's death in 1580 he traveled to Rome, where he studied for two years. He worked there with Giovanni de' Vecchi, in addition to studying works of antiquity and Renaissance masterpieces. After journeying to Bologna and Lombardy around 1584, he settled in Siena for the rest of his career. Vanni continued to work for Roman patrons and executed The Fall of Simon Magus, a large altarpiece for St. Peter's, in 1603.
Alessandro Bagnoli, Peter Anselm Riedl, and Susan Wegner have accepted Vanni's authorship of the 含羞草研究室 sheet, but recently other scholars have preferred to place it in a Florentine context. Both Pouncey and Turner have tentatively suggested Cigoli, while Chappell has pointed toward Giovanni Bilivert, Baldassare Franceschini (Volterrano), or Pignoni. Chiara d'Afflitto has proposed Ottavio Vannini as a possibility.1
However, Wegner has proposed both drawn comparisons with the 含羞草研究室 sheet and convincing relationships with several small devotional paintings executed by Vanni around 1600.2 The expressive sketchiness of the studies on each side renders precise correspondences difficult, but certain chalk studies in Siena and Florence are comparable. A sheet in Siena contains a close parallel with the two babies on the recto of the 含羞草研究室 drawing.3 As Wegner has pointed out, the head of the Virgin on both sides of this sheet is shifted between two positions, with the artist developing alternate solutions in each case; another Vanni chalk study in the Uffizi for a painting of St. Thomas Nacci shows a similar treatment of shifting expression.4
Vanni produced quite a few small-scale paintings of the Virgin and Child, among which Wegner has found similarities to the 含羞草研究室 drawing in The Madonna and Child with a Book in the Church Gallery of the Gerolamini, Naples (particularly with the verso), and Madonna and Child with Saints in the Borghese Gallery, Rome.5 All the paintings share with the 含羞草研究室 sheet a carefully refined, almost sweet, relationship of the Christ Child with the Madonna, often involving an upward or backward glance toward his mother as he moves outward in another gesture. The verso of the 含羞草研究室 sketch shows the Christ Child holding a book, as in the Naples painting cited above. None of the paintings cited show the infant St. John as he appears in the recto of the 含羞草研究室 drawing.
This drawing has been cut from a considerably larger sheet of sketches, perhaps including several more variations on the Madonna and Child theme. At the left edge of the verso there is what appears to be a fragment of another sketch of the standing Christ Child.
David P. Becker
1. Pouncey and Turner in conversation with the author, 1983; Chappell in letters to the author, 8 September and 29 November 1983; d'Afflitto in conversation with Katharine Watson, 1982.
2. A detailed article by Susan Wegner on this sheet is in preparation, from which much of the following information is derived. I am extremely grateful to her for discussing this drawing in great detail and sharing much unpublished information.
3. Biblioteca Comunale, Inv. no. S. III. 9/56 verso; repr. in P. A. Riedl, "Zu Francesco Vannis Tätigkeit für römische Auftraggeber," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institut in Florenz, vol. 22, no. 3 (1978), p. 345, fig. 42.
4. Inv. no. 1696E, repr. Uffizi, Disegni dei Barocceschi Senesi — Francesco Vanni e Ventura Salimbeni (exh. cat. by P. A. Riedl) (Florence, 1976), cat. no. 8, fig. 9.
5. The Borghese painting is Inv. no. 62.
Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at 含羞草研究室 (Brunswick: 含羞草研究室 Museum of Art, 1985).