Not Charity, but Hope An allegorical figure by Francesco Zuccarelli Alex Shapley

A woman, swathed in loose drapery, stands in a stormy landscape, looking up towards a shaft of light accompanied by a winged putto. She clutches her breast with one hand and holds a flame in the other, which is raised to the sky. Francesco Zuccarelli’s oil sketch on paper (illustrated right), now part of the Baillieu Library Print Collection at the University of Melbourne, is a curious image and is even more curious because it is unlike the majority of the works this artist is known to have produced. Zuccarelli is more commonly associated with a style of decorative — particularly of landscapes—that he altered only marginally during his prolific career. Francesco Zuccarelli was born in Pitigliano, , in 1702. He moved to in his youth and worked as an engraver for Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri (1676– 1742), reproducing ’s frescoes in Santissima Annunziata and the Chiostro dello Scalzo.1 Zuccarelli is first recorded as living in in 1729, where he was to work for a number of years.2 In 1732 he came under the patronage of future British consul Joseph Smith. In 1746 Smith commissioned Zuccarelli and Antonio Visentini (1688–1782) to produce a neo-Palladian overdoor

46 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 17, December 2015 Opposite: Francesco Zuccarelli, Hope [incorrectly inscribed La Carità (Charity)], c. 1760–70, oil on paper, 31.4 × 22.7 cm. Reg. no. 1959.0060, gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

Below: Hans Sebald Beham, Spes (Hope), 1539, plate 6 from series The seven virtues, engraving, 3.9 × 2.4 cm. Reg. no. 1959.2266, gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

series depicting British buildings in including 430 , which were rural landscapes. Visentini, who had to decorate hundreds of English not visited , had to correctly country houses. He was also a render English buildings from printmaker, particularly during his engravings,3 and Zuccarelli painted early career in Venice, producing the figures and surrounding landscape a total of 43 known prints. The in his typical Venetian style. Smith inscription on the verso of this work supported Zuccarelli during his states that it is from a series of ‘6 early career, and when Smith sold original , with engravings’, his collection of books, pictures and suggesting an attempt by Zuccarelli drawings to King George III in 1762, to produce items for the print some 30 paintings by Zuccarelli were connoisseur market.7 included;4 these are now in the Royal Zuccarelli was a consummate Collection. businessman, trying out new subject Zuccarelli did not make his first matter for different audiences and trip to England until 1752, but he markets. He produced a canvas was to stay for 10 years. There is inspired by , evidence that Zuccarelli’s work was meeting the witches known in England before his arrival,5 (c. 1760), the religious painting ’s possibly through the patronage of return to Palestine and the classical such people as Joseph Smith. Richard Hercules slaying the centaur Nessus Wilson (1713/14–1782), the British (c. 1762). He also received in that sale have been described as landscape artist with whom Zuccarelli commissions for designs for tapestries, ‘particularly odd and varied in subject is often unfavourably compared, from 1756 to 1758, in which he matter’.9 met the Italian painter in Venice in created orientalist landscape imagery The mysterious artwork in 1751 and wrote home that Zuccarelli fused with rococo sentimentality.8 the Baillieu Library is likely to was a ‘famous painter of this place’ A sale of his pictures was held at the be in Zuccarelli’s tradition of and that Wilson received ‘strong London auction house of Prestage experimentation in the subject of impressions of colour and effect’ from and Hobbs on 10 February 1762, his works. Apart from an album of his landscapes.6 ‘by reason of his returning to ’. some 20 figure studies (formerly in In England Zuccarelli was to The catalogue’s title page describes the Tassi Collection and now in the work almost entirely as a landscape the items sold: ‘A Catalogue of the Piazzini dei Conti Albani Collection painter, producing Arcadian idyllic Genuine and Curious Collection of in ), Zuccarelli’s works are scenes in the Claudian tradition. He Pictures, of Mr. Zuccarelli, painted by generally classical landscapes with was a prodigious artist, producing himself … The Works of his Fancy contemporary figures. During the an astounding number of works, and Leisure Hours’. The 70 items mid- to late 1760s Zuccarelli’s figures

Alex Shapley, ‘Not Charity, but Hope’ 47 Georg Sigmund Facius, after , published by John Boydell, Hope, 1781, stipple etching, 60.8 × 44.0 cm. Reg. no. 1959.4598, gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

The focus on the figure rather than stained-glass window design of on the surrounding landscape makes 1777–84 (left). this work a rare and exceptional The flame is a less common composition for Zuccarelli. attribute of Hope. She is more often The work has erroneously accompanied by an anchor—as seen been known for over five decades in the Reynolds print—a reference by the title ‘La Carila’ due to a to the Biblical passage ‘which hope mistranscription of the title below we have as an anchor of the soul’.13 the image, which reads ‘La Carità’ The flame in this instance alludes (Charity, in Italian).11 This is to the Greek myth of the phoenix, a corroborated by a pencil inscription creature reborn through fire, whose on the auxiliary support, which symbolism was adopted by early appears to read ‘Charity’. The Christians. The symbol of flame woman, however, does not bear any of associated with Hope has a precedent the iconography normally associated in 15th- and 16th-century depictions with the allegorical figure of Charity. of the seven virtues, particularly An early etching by Zuccarelli, in Italy. Marcantonio Raimondi’s Charity (1728), displays the attributes engraving Hope (c. 1515–25) shows a typically associated with Charity, stylised flame in the top-right corner became more prominent in relation that is, a woman nursing or suckling above the woman holding a container to the surrounding landscapes, children.12 But in the Baillieu’s work, of unleavened bread (opposite). The and thus this work can be dated to the female figure holds a flame and phoenix is sometimes depicted in the that period. The loose brushwork looks to a divine light. The gaze into flame flanking the figure of Hope, and treatment of the angels in the heavenly light is a common symbol such as in the engraved playing card painting Wooded landscape with Mary of faith, divine inspiration or rapture, of an unknown Ferrarese printmaker Magdalene and angels (1765–70) is but, in combination with the flame, (c. 1470–80), and Georges Reverdy’s also reminiscent of the putto in this it is associated with the allegorical Hope (1550–60), both in the undated work. Federica Spadotto, figure of Hope, who is commonly collection of the , author of the artist’s catalogue depicted looking into a beam of light London. raisonné, places the Baillieu’s work in from the heavens. This can be seen in Zuccarelli returned to Venice the period 1760–70, when Zuccarelli other images in the Baillieu Library in 1762 and became a member of produced a number of devotional Print Collection: Hans Sebald the Venetian Academy. He made a compositions.10 Despite the increased Beham’s engraving Hope (1539, see second trip to London in 1765 and prominence of the figures in this p. 47) and a contemporaneous stipple became a founding member of the period, they still have the appearance engraving by Georg Sigmund Facius, , alongside of actors in a staged Arcadian play. Hope (1781), after Joshua Reynolds’ prominent English artists such

48 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 17, December 2015 Marcantonio Raimondi, after Raphael, Hope, c. 1515–25, plate 6 from series The seven virtues, engraving, 20.9 × 10.4 cm. Reg. no. 1959.3688, gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas 2 Jacob Bean and William Griswold, ‘Francesco Gainsborough, proof of the esteem Zuccarelli’, in James Byam Shaw and George Knox (eds), Italian eighteenth-century in which he was held in England at drawings, New York: Metropolitan Museum of the time. Zuccarelli sold a number Art, 1987, p. 221. of works on paper at Langford’s 3 Visenti depended largely on Colen Campbell’s on 3 April 1769, before returning Vitruvius Britannicus, or, the British architect, containing the plans, elevations, and sections of to Venice, and this suggests an end the regular buildings, both publick and private, date for those works with an English in Great Britain, with a variety of new designs history and provenance, such as … (first published 1715–25); see Anthony Blunt, ‘A neo-Palladian programme executed this work. by Visentini and Zuccarelli for Consul Smith’, With the waning popularity of Burlington Magazine, vol. 100, no. 665, decorative, rococo-style painting, August 1958, p. 283. Zuccarelli’s reputation diminished 4 Levey, ‘Francesco Zuccarelli in England’, p. 12. 5 Levey, ‘Francesco Zuccarelli in England’, p. 2. somewhat. Following his death in 6 Michael Levey, Painting in XVIII century Florence in 1788, he became a figure Venice, London: Phaidon, 1959, p. 61. of scorn. The Redgrave brothers, in 7 I have searched unsuccessfully for any prints that might be from such a series. However, due A century of painters of the English to the unusual subject matter for Zuccarelli, school, a landmark book on British they might exist in collections but be painting first published in 1866, misattributed. denigrated his work as displaying 8 Levey, ‘Francesco Zuccarelli in England’, p. 5. 9 Levey, ‘Francesco Zuccarelli in England’, 14 ‘mawkish and pretty insipidity’. But pp. 8, 10. in modern times his legacy has been 10 Federica Spadotto, email to Alex Shapley, explored by Michael Levey in the 13 May 2015. 15 11 This inscription, probably added by another 1950s, by Phyllis Dearborn Massar hand at a later date, also attributes the work to 16 in the 1990s, and most recently by Francesco Zuccarelli (Francesco Zuccareli. [sic] Federica Spadotto, who published fec.). Federica Spadotto has since confirmed Zuccarelli’s catalogue raisonné in this attribution. 12 Collection of the Biblioteca Marucelliana in 17 2007, almost 220 years after the Florence and reproduced in Phyllis Dearborn artist’s death. Massar, ‘The prints of Francesco Zuccarelli’, This work, one of thousands of Alex Shapley is the exhibition and loans officer at Print Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 3, September prints and drawings donated by Dr J. the National Library of Australia, Canberra. She 1998, pp. 247–63. completed a Master of Art Curatorship at the 13 King James Bible, Hebrews 6:19. Orde Poynton in 1959, is now part of University of Melbourne in 2013. 14 Levey, Painting in XVIII century Venice, p. 66. the collection of the Baillieu Library 15 Levey, ‘Francesco Zuccarelli in England’. Print Collection at the University of 16 Dearborn Massar, ‘The prints of Francesco 1 Michael Levey, ‘Francesco Zuccarelli in Zuccarelli’. Melbourne, and is correctly identified England’, Italian Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, 17 Federica Spadotto, Francesco Zuccarelli, Milan: as Hope, not Charity. January 1959, p. 3. Bruno Alfieri, 2007.

Alex Shapley, ‘Not Charity, but Hope’ 49