An Early Friend of Degas Tn Florence: a Newly-Identified Portrait Drawing of Degas by Giovanni Fattori

NORMA BROUDE An Early Friend of Degas tn Florence: A Newly-Identified Portrait Drawing of Degas by Giovanni Fattori O N 4th August r8s8, Edgar Degas arrived in Florence as the lished in 1893, a book chronicling the history of the renowned guest of his aunt and uncle Bellelli.1 Intending at first to Gaffe Michelangiolo, popular meeting-place of artists and stop only briefly on his way home to France, he subse patriots in Florence during the 185o's and early '6o's. 'Nel quently decided to stay and await the return of his aunt r855,' wrote Signorini, 'feci anch'io la mia prima comparsa al Laura, who had been called before his arrival to the bedside Michelangiolo insieme con Odoardo Borrani, e vennero con noi . .. of her ailing father in Naples. Despite the frequent and Degas e Morot [sic], Tissot e Lafenestre . .. .'8 And further on, insistent summonses issued by his own father over the next ennumerating the artists from all over the world who had months, Degas, a usually dutiful son, repeatedly put off his once gathered at the Gaffe, Signorini lists again : 'Dalla departure for home, and did not in fact leave Florence until Francia quattro giovani studenti oggi notissimi nel mondo dell'arte, the end of March r8sg, some eight months after his arrival.2 il Degas, il Morot [sic], il Tissot e Lafenestre .. .' 9 In addition, The important role which this Florentine sojourn played in the artist Baccio Maria Bacci, a late student of the Tuscan Degas's early development has long been recognized by painter Giovanni Fattori, has referred upon several occasions students of Degas's art, and much has been written about in his writings on the Macchiaioli to a particular friendship the activities and circumstances which induced him to between Fattori and Degas during the latter's first trip to prolong his stay: his relationship with the members of the Florence, 10 and he has mentioned too the existence of a Bellelli family and the evolution of his ambitious group portrait of Fattori, now lost, which Degas had painted, portrait of them; 3 his extensive activity as a copyist after presumably during that period. 11 Lacking further evidence, works by Quattrocento masters in the museums and churches however, scholars have ignored the possibility of a friendship of Florence ;4 and his friendship with Gustave Moreau, 5 the between Degas and Fattori, a possibility rendered im French painter with whom he had become acquainted in possible, it might be supposed, by the enormous differences Rome and whose arrival in Florence, Degas pere correctly in their backgrounds and personalities. The appearance, predicted in a letter of 30th November, 'va te retenir encore, however, of new evidence, presented below, lends credibility je le vois bien.' 6 at last to Bacci's report, and helps to shed some light on a Considerable attention has been paid too to Degas's personal aspect of Degas's early experience in Florence contacts in later years with Florentine artists and critics like about which hitherto very little has been known. Telemaco Signorini and Diego Martelli, whose acquaintance Among the more than 200 drawings by Giovanni Fattori he would first have made during this early stay in Florence.7 in the Museo Givico at Leghorn, recently restored, cata But the actual extent and significance of these initial contacts logued and exhibited under the auspices of the Soprinten with local artists have been largely neglected, due to the denza alle Gallerie di Roma II, is a portrait drawing in scantiness of the documentation which has been available. pencil of a dapper young man who stands, full-length, with The only firm evidence, in fact, which has been adduced his left hand in his trouser pocket and his right hand grasping to support the contention that Degas mixed with his Floren the watch chain suspended from his vest, in a pose not tine contemporaries has consisted of two brief passages in a unrelated to the conventions of contemporary photography book which was written by Telemaco Signorini and pub- (Fig.32) .12 Identified in the catalogue of the Rome exhibition simply as 'ritratto d'uomo in piedi,' this drawing is unmistakably a 1 Date known from a letter in a private collection, Paris, dated 13th August portrait of the young Edgar Degas. Appearing on the verso 1858, to Edgar in Florence from his father Auguste De Gas in Paris. Cited by side of a sheet of drawings which can be dated c. r 86o on T. REFF: 'New Light on Degas's Copies', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CVI [1964], p.251 and 11. 13 ; also, REFF: 'The Chronology of Degas's Notebooks', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CV Jl ( 1965), p.61 I, " ·53· 2 For a general account of these even ts, see P.-A . LEMOISNE: Degas et so11 ~~:uvre, 8 T. SIGNORINI: Caricaturisti e caricaturati al Gaffe A1ichelangiolo, Florence [1893], 4 vols., Paris [1 946 tr], I , pp.29 ff. (Works herein catalogued will be cited p. 77 (Modern edition with introduction aed notes by B. M. BACCI, Florence below as L. with number.) [1952], pp.I 19- 20.) On 2nd April 1859, Degas was in Genoa, presumably on his way home to • Ibid., pp.120-21. (Modern edition, p.167.) Pari s. Known from inscription in Bibliotheque Nationale, Dc.327d reserve, 10 B. M. BACCI: L' Ottocento dei Macchiaioli e Diego Martelli, Florence [1 g6g], carnet 16, P·4' (hereafter cited as B.N., carnet 16, etc.), cited in REFF [1g6s], pp.46, 106; also in SIGNOR IN!: Caricaturisti (ed . BACCI (1952), pp. I 19- 120, n. I ). p.612 and n.6 1. In a letter of 24th April 1972 to the author, Bacci writes that Ma tilde Cioli 3 ." ce J· s. BOGGS: 'Edgar Degas and the Bellellis', The Art Bulletin, XXXVII Bartolommei, herself a writer, painter and very good friend of Martelli and ( 1955), pp. I 2 7-36. Fattori, 'spesso mi ha detto dell'appre.u:amento del Degas per Fattori.' 4 See T. REFF: ' Degas's Copies of Older Art', THE BURLIN GTON MAGAZINE, CV 11 In SIG NORINI: Caricaturisti (ed. BACCI (1952), pp.11g- 20, n.I ). Mentioned [1963], pp.241- 5 1; also, REFF [1964], pp.250- 59. also by M. DE MICrmu: Giovanni Fattori , Busto Arsizio [Ig61], P·'9· In the letter 5 SeeP. POOL: 'Degas and Moreau, THE DURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CV (1963), cited above, n.Io, Bacci writes: 'In quanto al ritratto del Fattori,fatto dal Degas, pp.251-56. e 1111 argomento del quale si parla da piu di settanta anni. Lo ha affermato che esisteva, • LEMOISNE, I , p. 3 I . Anna Franchi, una scrittrice legata ai Macchiaioli e arnica del Fattori.' 7 See L. VITALI: 'Three Italian friends of Degas', THE Bl'RLINGTON MAGAZINE, 12 D. DURBE: Disegni di Giovanni Fat tori del Museo Civico di Livomo, Rome [ 1970 ], cv [1 963], pp.266- n p.21: No.52 verso, matita su carla grigio verde, mm.246 by 188. 726 A NEWLY-IDENTIFIED PORTRAIT DRAWI N G OF D EG A S BY GIO VAN NI FATTORI both stylistic and thematic grounds, 13 it might have been and at no later date, we may assume, could such a friendship drawn by Fattori from a photograph during the early '6o's, between them have ever developed. or more probably, judging from the naturalness and im Born in Leghorn on 6th September 1825, Giovanni mediacy of the interpretation, from life, during Degas's Fattori, as he was wont to stress m later autobiographical second stay in Florence in April of r86o. 14 Although this statements, 19 was the son of simple, working-class people, smiling and relaxed figure contrasts sharply with the and received an early education of the most rudimentary romantic moodiness and solemn introspection to which variety. In I846, at the age of twenty-one, he went to Degas's own youthful self-portraits have accustomed us, 15 Florence to begin a period of study under Giuseppe Bezzuoli, the physical features presented by the drawing are never the Director of Painting at the Florentine Academy, and this theless easily identifiable with those made familiar not only period offormal study lasted probably until Bezzuoli's death by the self-portraits but also by early photographs16 and by in I855· The major portion of Fattori's extant r:euvre dates contemporary descriptions of Degas's appearance.H Im from I859 on, after the artist had reached his mid-thirties, mediately recognizable are the small, slim body and the while his activity in Florence from I 846-59 is known to us relatively large, elongated head with its high, domed fore today only through a relatively small number of paintings, head and deep-set eyes, particularly close in this drawing to most of them portraits of family and friends, preserved by the image that Degas would present of himself in the early the families of the sitters. 20 In these works of his student days, '6o's, as in the Degas saluant (L.Io5) of about 1862, or Fattori appears to have been concerned primarily with Degas's double portrait of himself and the painter De mastering the conventions of traditional high art, as, for Valernes (L.I I6) of around I864 (Fig.33) . example, in a stiff and rather awkward portrait of his Degas's little-known early friendship with Giovanni nephews painted in 1848 (M . I), a highly self-conscious Fattori, now substantiated by the appearance of this drawing, attempt on the part of the young artist to utilize the props follows in one respect a pattern which recurs in Degas's and conventions of the grand portrait tradition.

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