RCEWA –The Temptation of Mary Magdalene by Johann Liss Statement of the Expert Adviser to the Secretary of State That The
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RCEWA –The Temptation of Mary Magdalene by Johann Liss Statement of the Expert Adviser to the Secretary of State that the painting meets Waverley criterion one, two and three. Further Information The ‘Applicant’s statement’ and the ‘Note of Case History’ are available on the Arts Council Website: www.artscouncil.org.uk/reviewing-committee-case-hearings Please note that images and appendices referenced are not reproduced. 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. Brief Description of Item Johann Liss (d.1631) The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene Oil on canvas, 98.8 x 125.8 cm. 2. Context Provenance: probably the wealthy merchant Richard Chauncey (d.1760), Edgcote, Northamptonshire (the painting was recorded in 1920 framed as the overmantel in the former Billiard Room in the remodelled house dating from 1747-50); probably his son, William Henry Chancey (d.1788); by inheritance with Edgcote to his brother-in-law, Thomas Carter (the name ‘Mr Carter’ is chalked on the stretcher); probably by descent to his granddaughter Julia Aubrey who married William Ralph Cartwright (1771-1847) of Aynhoe Park, Oxfordshire; probably inherited with Edgcote by his son by his second wife Richard Aubrey Cartwright (1811-1891); thence by descent to his grandson Ralph Cartwright (1880-1936); anonymous sale London, Christie’s 9 December 1994, lot 96; acquired in 1995 for the present owner Exhibition History: none. Bibliography: H.A. Tipping, ‘Edgcote, Northamptonshire’, Country Life xlvii, January 1920 reproduced p. 51 H.A. Tipping English Homes. Period v, vol. 1 1921 p. 296 and pl 256 R. Klessmann, Johan Liss, exhibition catalogue Rathaus Augsburg 2 August -2 November 1975 and Cleveland Museum of Art 17 December 1975- 7 March 1976 p. 86 under cat. No. A17 R. Klessmann ‘Johann Liss’s Temptation of the Magdalene’ in The Burlington Magazine cxxxviii no. 138 March 1996 pp. 187-9, reproduced R. Klessmann, Johann Liss, A monograph and catalogue raisonné, Doornspijk 1999 p. 143 cat. no. 14, reproduced pls 11 and 12 A. Bader, Chemistry and Art, Further Adventures of a Chemist Collector, London 2008, pp. 99-104 3. Waverley Criteria The painting meets Waverley Criteria 1, 2 and 3 . The painting is the first painting by Liss known to be in Britain. It has a long history in the UK: it was almost certainly in the country between 1747-52 and possibly earlier, and is extremely likely to have formed an integral part of the decorative schemes arising from the rebuilding of Edgcote House, a 1 grade 1 listed building in the mid-eighteenth century. In relation to Waverley Criterion 1 this gives The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene a very long, significant and close association with the history of this country and its history of collecting Old Master paintings. The painting is by Johann Liss (d. 1631), one of the most talented and original painters working in Italy in the early seventeenth century; his career was short and the surviving works are not large in number. The painting shows Liss at the height of his considerable powers as an artist, and is one of his finest works. It can thus be argued to be of outstanding aesthetic importance, meeting Waverley criterion 2 . The painting was not known to scholars prior to 1994 has never been exhibited (other than at Sotheby’s for the recent auction) and should therefore be thoroughly studied. It is not only of especial interest to curators and art historians studying the work of Liss and the Northern Baroque, but it is also of interest to those concerned with the history of collecting and the reception of the Baroque in Britain during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The picture therefore meets the criterion set out in Waverley 3 . DETAILED CASE 1. Detailed description of item if more than in Executive Summary, and any comment The subject and composition of The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene are unusual, depicting the moment at which the female saint is wrestling with the choice between following her previous sinful life, represented by the old woman turned towards her with an armful of glinting gold, or a new path of virtue, represented by the angel on the right holding a palm, a sign of heaven, who takes her arm; the Magdalen is holding between clasped hands a human skull, a symbol of mortality, against which the angel offers the hope of eternal life. Although the origins of the way in which the subject is treated seem to lie in compositions focusing on the choices of different figures including the Magdalen which were made in Germany and in the Low Countries in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Liss has transformed such compositions into a deeply engaging and affecting painting, as well as a work of outstanding painterly beauty. The manner in which the painting focuses on a particular moment is characteristic of Liss’s dramatic skills, heightened by the contrast of lighting in the composition (particularly in relation to the Caravaggistic chiaroscuro of the old woman on the left) and the agonised expression of the Magdalen’s face. The deliberate choice of a horizontal composition with its strong diagonal bisecting the painting into dark and light areas highlight the subject’s choices and create a sense of dynamic motion underlining the sense of the moment of drama, typical of the Baroque style of painting which dominated Europe in the early seventeenth century. These aspects of the painting are considerably heightened by the extraordinarily fluid and accomplished handling of paint and the contrasts of brilliant, jewel-like colour. 2. Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the item 2 This painting is an outstanding example of the work of Johann Liss as the above description demonstrates. It shows Liss as one of the leading, most innovative and most accomplished painters in the Baroque style, demonstrating the influence of predecessors from both Northern and Southern Europe, such as Rubens, Caravaggio, Titian and Fetti, but with a command of original compositional narrative and a painterly ability which is distinctively his own. Fewer than forty paintings by Liss survive in collections in Europe and the USA, and his career remains obscure in many respects. Little scholarly work on Liss has been carried out in the twenty first century, but in the last quarter of the twentieth century scholarship allied to technical examination clarified that the Judith and Holofernes in the National Gallery was the prime original among a number of versions of the subject, and that, similarly, The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene , a work of similar quality, was Liss’s original, and not the version in Dresden. 1 It is perhaps unusual that the career of an artist of Liss’s significance should still require significant study in order to establish the chronology of his work, as well as the authorship of significant paintings, and emphasises the significance of The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene in carrying out such studies. According to his early biographer, Joachim Sandrart, Liss was born in the Oldenburg region in Northern Germany and worked in Amsterdam, Paris, Venice and Rome. He is recorded in Rome in 1629 and died in Verona 1631, his refuge from the plague then raging in Venice, but dated paintings known to be by Liss are absent from his oeuvre, such that there is still a lack of consensus as to the periods he spent in Rome and in Venice. It has been suggested that The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene might even have been made in Antwerp (although there are no documented works for comparison) though other scholars connect it with his period in Rome. It has been presumed that this period followed a visit to Venice, but the drawing in Hamburg which served as a basis for asserting his presence in Venice in 1621 (cited in the Sotheby’s sale catalogue) is believed by more recent scholarship to be dated 1629. 2 It seems possible that The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene was actually made in Venice in the second half of the 1620s, as its echoes of Venetian art of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries would seem to indicate. The foregoing serves to highlight the need for further study of the work of Liss, particularly making use of the scientific techniques which have developed in the last two decades, and which have not been applied to Liss’s oeuvre in a systematic manner, or even at all. Only three works by Liss are in UK public collections: two in the National Gallery and one at the Fitzwilliam Museum (the Judith and Holofernes and The Fall of Phaeton in London and A Bacchanalian Feast in Cambridge , an early work). Given that The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene was not known to scholars prior to 1994 it should therefore be thoroughly studied, particularly in the context of the other three works by Liss in the UK, those in the National Gallery and that in the Fitzwilliam Museum. It would be highly beneficial to be able to study all four paintings together and carry out technical examinations to gain further insight into aspects of the works which might lead to a new chronology. It would be particularly interesting to be able to compare closely The Temptation of Saint Mary Magdalene with the National Gallery’s Judith and Holofernes , as, although most scholars have dated the latter painting to Liss’s Roman period, new 1 Richard Spear, ‘Johann Liss reconsidered’, Art Bulletin, LVIII, 1976, pp. 582–93 2 See John Hand, German Paintings of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries , National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1993, p. 120. 3 information concerning its provenance suggests it may date from Venice in the later 1620s: both works may therefore have been produced in Venice at the same period.