NORMA BROUDE

An Early Friend of Degas tn : A Newly-Identified Portrait Drawing of Degas by

O N 4th August r8s8, 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 , e vennero con noi . .. of her ailing father in . 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 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 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. and , 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, , 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 . , 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. By 1854, early relationships. Accustomed to his father's conservative however, in his self-portrait of that year (Fig.34), Fattori's but highly cultivated circle of acquaintances, Degas, in his style displays new confidence and energy, particularly in the youth, tended to seek out friends who were often considerably plastic vigour of the modelling, revealing the influence of older than himself. 18 At the time of his meeting with Fattori, his admired teacher Bezzuoli, whose tastes are also reflected Degas was twenty-five years of age, eight years younger than in the very few examples of older art, both of them portraits, the Tuscan painter who was then thirty-three. Unlike the which we know that Fattori chose to copy on a formal basis other older men whose companionship Degas had sought, during these years: in 1855, the portrait of 'Giulio Secondo however, Fattori was in no position to enlighten or to opera di Raffaelo,' and in 1856, 'la Bella di Tiziano,' both in instruct his young friend, whose worldly and cultural ex­ the Palatine Gallery. 21 At the same time that he was perience was already far wider and more varied than his endeavouring to assimilate the traditions of formal por­ own. In defining the nature and significance of their friend­ traiture from conventional sources, however, Fattori was ship, therefore, it becomes most meaningful to think not in also giving expression, on a more informal level, to tastes and terms of influence, given or received in either direction, but interests of a very different order, as in the portrait of a rather of affinity, a temporary affinity which was based middle-aged male peasant, dated 5th February 1850 and upon similarities in visual temperament and in stage of dedicated 'all'amico Vangi' (M.5), in which is revealed, artistic development. At no later date would Degas and already fully developed, the acuity and realism of Fattori's Fattori, men from very different social and intellectual back­ characteristic mode of observation. This powerful realism of grounds, have ever again found themselves so entirely in the vision is a tendency which persists throughout Fattori's same situation as when they met, in 1858, each groping to career, and though it becomes dominant particularly in the establish his artistic identity and each struggling with later decades of his life, it exists as an undercurrent, as a virtually identical problems and conflicts of values and goals; disturbing and unsettling factor, even during his earliest years as an academic student. Throughout the 185o's, Fattori was an habitue of the n Ibid., p.21, No.52. The recto drawings are of Bersaglieri (sharpshooters), Caffe Michelangiolo on via Larga, where in the room members of a special Piedmontese division seen in Florence probably for the reserved for the artists nightly discussions revolved around first time in the summer of 186o (although some may have accompanied Vittorio Emanuele II on his visit to Florence earlier that spring) (Ibid., p.13). the issues of Italian national unification and the 'latest' u Degas's brief Easter visit to in March and April of 186o took him first artistic trends from France. Through a few of the artists to Naples and then to Florence. H e arrived in Naples from Marseilles on 21st March 186o and departed on 2nd April for Leghorn (REFF [1965], p.612, n.66). For a documented chronology of Degas's early trips to and within Italy, see, also, REFF [1964], pp.25D-51. 15 See, e.g., LEMOISNE, Nos.s, 37, 103, 104. 11 These have been collected and edited by D. DURB~ and published as an uSee, e.g., J· REWALD: The History of Impressionisrn, New York [1961], p.27. appendix to DE MICHELI's monograph on Fattori, op. cit., pp.77--g6. In 1907, 11 See, e.g., the description by P. LAFOND (Degas, Paris [1919[, p.gg), quoted by Fattori also wrote two essentially autobiographical letters to Carlo Raffaelli REWALD, op. cit., p.1gg. which have been published by L. VITALI: Lettere dei Macchiaioli, Turin [1953], te These would include: Evariste de Valernes, the painter and student of pp.gS-102. Delacroix, who was 14 years Degas's senior (REWALD, op. cit., p.26 and P. 10 G. MALESCI: Catalogazione illustrata della pittura ad olio di Giovanni Fattori, CABANNE: Degas, Paris [ 1g6o] , p.84, n.83) ; Prince Gregoire Soutzo, engraver, Novara [1961], Nos.1--6, 8, g, 11, 13, 14, 16. (Works herein catalogued are collector and friend of his parents, who helped to familiarize him in the mid­ cited below as M. with number.) ' so's with a romantic view of nature and taught him the technique of etching 11 Fattori's letters requesting official permission to copy these works are in the (REwALD, op. cit., p.27 and B.N. carnet 13, P·33) ; and Gustave Moreau, eight archives of the Soprintendenza in Florence: Filza XV. Conservazione dei Monu­ years older than Degas and a former student of Chasseriau, who may have menti d'arte dei RR. Palazzi e Ville, 1855-56; Section 33, document 107 (per­ helped to broaden Degas's tastes during the late 'so's in the direction of the mission granted on 21St November for 30 days) and Section 83 ('Permesso painterly and the exotic, weaning him away from his earlier narrow commit· ordinaria per copiare alia R. Galleria Palatina'), document Bo (letter dated ment to the disciples of Ingres (POOL, art. cit.) . 2nd June, 1856; permission granted on 29th September for 30 days) . A NEWLY-IDENTIFIED PORTRAIT DRAWING OF DEGAS BY GIOVANNI FATTORJ who frequented the Gaffe and who had visited Paris in 1855 taking advantage perhaps upon this occasion of the absence for the Universal Exposition - the Florentine, Serafino De of paternal supervision briefly to explore and to spread his Tivoli, and the Neapolitans, and Saverio wings in Florence in a manner which would not then have Altamura - the younger local artists had heard about the been possible for him at home. 27 Barbizon School and about Decamps. And although they On the artistic level, however, the discussions which took were not yet thought of as a coherent group and had not as place at the Caffe Michelangiolo and which featured during yet been called the 'Macchiaioli,' by r8s8-sg they were these years a retardataire preoccupation with the principles of already talking quite freely about the macchia, or 'effect', a Barbizon could have provided no revelations romantic concept which meant for them the practice of for the partisan Degas, who might indeed have found himself organizing their compositions in strong, clear, light and called upon in this milieu to enlighten his new and pro­ dark tonal patterns through which poetic feeling might be vincially isolated acquaintances with news of more recent evoked and communicated. Some of them had also begun to artistic developments from the French capital. In Fattori, make their first timid attempts at sketching landscape certainly, Degas seems to have chosen from this Florentine motifs directly from nature, so that, gradually, by the late circle a friend who was among those least affected by the r8so's, the principle of the macchia had become associated prevailing local concern with poetic chiaroscuro in painting. for many of them with a commitment to the direct study of There is little to indicate, in fact, that Giovanni Fattori ever natural 'effects' or patterns of illumination as the formal really consciously assimilated the romantic theory of ex­ and expressive bases of their studio work. 22 pression and effect to which older artists like Morelli and a Although the writings of the French social theorist, number of the younger Florentine 'progressives' like Proudhon, were known to Florentine painters during the Signorini and Cabianca then subscribed. The 'silen ;::,ioso' late I 8so's, 23 there is no evidence that the Florentines were Fattori, as he was later called, 28 was never much given to aware at this time of the work of Courbet. When Degas intellectualizing about his art, and even if the theoretical arrived in Florence, even the most progressive among them aspects of the new esthetic did not go over his head entirely, were still producing and exhibiting pictures on romantic it is not unlikely that he would have dismissed them as literary and historical themes, and it was not in fact until unnecessarily esoteric. When the crisis in his own artistic the early '6o's, after the military campaigns of 1859 in development occurred, in fact, during the years between particular, that the Florentines began to turn with any 1859 and r86r, the major issues at stake for the modernist consistency towards contemporary rural and urban life for painter in Fattori's mind seem to have resolved themselves their themes. Realism, though it shortly would become so, rather simplistically into a series of purely thematic distinc­ was not yet an issue among Florentine artists in I8s8-sg, tions. During this period when, as he later somewhat mis­ and there is consequently no basis upon which to speculate, leadingly put it, he found himself struggling 'fra il realismo as Phoebe Pool has done, that the Macchiaioli could have macchia e il romanticismo', 29 the decisive influence on Fattori furnished for Degas an early contact with 'realistic doctrines by his own account was the Roman painter, Giovanni (Nino) of painting, which, in France, may have been too much Costa, who arrived in Florence in 1859, at a time when as".ociated with Courbet and Proudhon to attract a follower Fattori was just completing his Maria Stuarda al campo di of lngres who was also politically conservative.' 24 It is mis­ Crookstone (Fig.g6), a popular romantic theme, 30 treated leading, too, to suggest as Pool does here that the discussions pictorially by the young artist in a manner which depends to which Degas was exposed at the Gaffe Michelangiolo clearly, both in compositional conception and descriptive were devoid of radical political content. Surely Degas could details, upon the major history paintings of Fattori's late not have been unaware of the political tone and affiliations and revered teacher, Bezzuoli. 31 When Costa first visited of the Gaffe, where political plots and schemes were hatched Fattori's studio, probably well after Degas's departure, in the regularly during this unsettled period25 and where he may summer or autumn of 1859, 32 Fattori had already for some even have been conducted initially by his uncle, the Baron Bellelli, himself a political exile from Naples who was extremely active in the cause of I tali an unification. 26 27 The loud and informal atmosphere of the artists' gatherings at the Caffe Interesting, rather, is the fact that despite the political Michelangiolo is described by SIGNORINI: Caricaturisti, passim. Caricatural radicalism of the Gaffe, Degas nevertheless did frequent it, drawing, one of the favourite pastimes among the artists here, was also of some interest to Degas during these years. See the drawings in B.N. carnet 16, pp.105-106 and B.N. carnet 19, pp.96-102, used by Degas during his first and second visits to Florence respectively (cited by REFF [1965], pp.612, 613 and n.68) ; also, B.N. carnet 18, p.78. •• See N. BROUDE: 'The Macchiaioli : Effect and Expression in Nineteenth­ 28 BACCI: 'Prefazione', in SIGNORINI: Caricaturisti ( 1952], p.18. Century Florentine Painting', The Art Bulletin, LII [1970], pp.11-21. 20 Letter to Gustave Uzielli of 17th February 1904. In VITALI: Lettere, P·94· 23 In the chronological outline for his autobiography, Signorini, under the year 80 Degas in the 185o's seems to have shared Fattori's youthful taste for this 1855, wrote: 'Leggo Proudhon e divengo apostata delle idee mazziniane' (E. SOMARE: romantic and potentially melodramatic theme. In a notebook of 1855, there is Telemaco Signorini, [1926], p.268). evidence of his familiarity with a stage version of it (B.N. carnet 10, p.96) as 24 P. POOL: 'Some Early Friends of Edgar Degas', Apollo [May 1964], P·394· well as a record of his enthusiasm for the Italian a~ tress Adelaide Ristori whom 25 An habitue of the Caffe during these years, for example, was Beppe Dolfi, he drew 'in her black dress in Maria Stewart' (carnet 10, p.87) (J. s. BOGGs: the Florentine baker who was one of the leaders of the peaceful revolution of 'Degas Notebooks at the Bibliotheque Nationale', THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, 27th April 1859 that saw the fin al expulsion of the Grand Duke from Florence. C [1958], p.165, also p.167 and notes 29, 31). See SIGNORINI: Caricaturisti [1952], pp.so, 52, and 50, n. t. 31 In particular, Bezzuoli's L'Entrata di Carlo VIII in Firenz;e (Galleria fiorentina 2s A supporter of Cavour, the Baron Bellelli had been exiled from Naples as a d'arte moderna), a work then well-known and highly respected locally as the result of his activities during the Revolution of 1848. He settled first in France, artist's masterpiece. from 1849 to 1853, and then in Florence where he collaborated with Marchese 3 2 Costa stopped in Florence, out of curiosity about the Caffe Michelangiolo, Luigi Dragonetti to found the influential political journal, II Risorgimento. on his way south from Aosta where he had been serving as a volunteer with a Later, he served as Senator in the newly established Kingdom of Italy until cavalry regiment. He then settled in Florence and remained there save for his death in 1864. SeeR. RAIMONDI: Degas e la suafamiglia in Napoli, 1793-19 17, short trips until c.187o (see G. CARANDENTE : I. Macchiaioli, Rome [1956], Naples [1958], pp.224-44. pp.gl-32). 730 A NEWLY-IDENTIFIED PORTRAIT DRAWING OF Df.GAS BY GIOVANNI FATTORI \ time been sketching independently out-of-doors, but it was interesting that for both Fattori and Degas, history painting apparently only with the advice and encouragement which would shortly become the embodiment of this conflict, to Costa provided that he could finally be induced to turn be tackled and dealt with inevitably as part of their develop­ consistently to contemporary themes and to the practice of ment within the tradition which had shaped them and to constructing his finished pictures on the basis of plein air which they aspired. And for both, the concept of history as studies. In particular, a group of recent studies of the French well as the formal demands of traditional history painting soldiers who had been camped in the Cascine in May and provided the bridge which would ultimately assist them in June of 1859 now served Fattori as sources for his Campo making what was for each of them a very difficult and Italiano dopo la Battaglia di Magenta (Fig.37), the painting momentous transition to themes of contemporary life. A ~ with which, again at Costa's urging, he entered and won a writers, for example, have often pointed out about the major, Government-sponsored competition during the Young Spartans (L. 70), one of the series of history paintings winter of 185g-6o,33 a painting which, in his own view, to which Degas devoted his major efforts during the early marked the beginning of his career as a mature and inde­ 186o's, the adolescent boys with their strange haircuts and pendent artist. A comparison between this picture and the the girls with their pug noses bear a striking resemblance to earlier Maria Stuarda, however, both standard frieze-like the street urchins of contemporary Paris and are far from compositions painted with the same careful attention to classical in their physical type. 36 Yet Degas's sources for this accuracy and authenticity of costuming and historical detail, work, it has been pointed out, were consistently classical, suggests that the nature of Fattori's conversion at this stage before successive repainting, carried out during the early was more purely thematic rather than stylistic in any '6o's, gradually altered the appropriately classical forms and significant sense, a choice in essence of which costumes his clear linear style which may still be observed in the artist's figures were going to wear. Imbued by his academic training preparatory studies for the work as well as in X-ray photo­ with the idea that a painter's highest function and respon­ graphs of the canvas itself. 36 While at work on a painting sibility is to paint history, it is not surprising that when like this one, Degas, interestingly enough, was at the same Fattori 'found himself' during these years as a modern time also making his first outright approach to themes from 'Realist', it was in the realm of painting contemporary contemporary life, struggling, as Fattori had done, to battle scenes, the one aspect of contemporary Italian ex­ reconcile contemporary subject-matter with official stand­ perience which could perhaps most legitimately be classified, ards and modes. Significantly, the first of such themes to in the traditional sense, as an historical event. attract him was horseracing, 37 a theme which requires very Despite the greater range of his cultural experience and traditional elements - equestrian figures in a landscape - background, there was much that Edgar Degas shared with and which may in this sense have represented for Degas an Giovanni Fattori in terms of his values and the broad pattern aspect of modernity not so far removed in its pictorial of his artistic training and development which may help us possibilities and implications from the processions, parades to understand the basis for his early friendship with this and battle scenes of history painting and ~ more traditional Italian painter. A brief glance at Degas's ceuvre prior to his conception of high art. arrival in Florence in August of 1858 reminds us, for example, While the relationship between Degas and Fattori that portraiture - in particular, the problem of mastering provided neither with an experience which would substan­ the devices of traditional formal portraiture - was the major tively alter the course of his future development, there occurs, preoccupation for Degas during the earliest part ofhis career, nevertheless, in the work of each during this period of their much as it had been for Fattori. At the same time, like contact, an isolated instance of unique or unusual activity Fattori, he displayed quite early in his art a curiosity and which may indicate an immediate though limited amount awareness in regard to contemporary life - revealed, for of mutual influence. It is interesting, for example, that the example, by his sketches of Provenc;al peasant women done handful of drawings extant by Fattori after works of older in the south of France in 1855 34 - as well as an acute eye, art all date from this period around 1859, around the time, more generally speaking, for the visual facts of the world that is, of his acquaintance with Degas, whose extensive around him, evidenced not only by such early genre pieces activity as a copyist, particularly during the years from 1853 as the Mendiante Romaine and the Vieille Italienne painted in to 1861, is of course well known. 38 We can discern, moreover, Rome in 1857 (L.28, 29) but also by Degas's formal por­ in the few extant drawings by Fattori of this type, all copies traiture of the same period, as in the portrait of his grand­ after works by masters of the Florentine Quattrocento and father, Rene-Hilaire De Gas, painted that same year (L.27). early Cinquecento, an attitude and a mode of procedure very At the time of their meeting, in other words, Degas, like similar to that observed in the majority of Degas's copies Fattori, was a young artist who had recently emerged from after_older art. 39 In such published drawings by Fattori as formal training with a fixed idea of the nature of traditional high art, who was endowed at the same time with a gift for realistic observation and was gradually developing a visual 36 H . P. SLOANE: Freru;h Painting Between the Past and the Present, Princeton [1951) , awareness of the contemporary scene- opposing tendencies p.2o5; also, REWALD, op. cit., p.58. 31 REFF [1g64], p.257 and notes 71 , 72, 73· which eventually would have to come into conflict. It is The importance which Degas attached to this painting is suggested by the fact that it remained in his studio, in sight on an easel, during the artist's last year ('Je rappelle encore cette tendresse qu'il avail, en ses dernieres anrlies, pour l ' anciet:.~e toile qu'il avail placle sur un chevalet. us jeunes .filles de Sparte dijient les jCIItles gens a u See DURBE: Disegni di Fattori, pp.1 3-16, for presentatien of the documents Ia lutte.' D. HALEYY: Degas parle .• • , Paris-Geneva [1960], p.16o). which establish the chronology of Fattori's involvement in the comp11tition • 7 E.g., LEMOISNE, Nos.75, 76, 101. and the progress of his work on the painting. 31 REFF [1963), p.242, and REFF [1964), p.250 and n.6. 34 B.N. carnet 15, pp.63, 71, 78. 30 REFF [1963), p.247• A NEWLY-TDENTIFIF.D PORTR A IT DRAWING O F DEGAS BY GIOVANNI FATTORI that of a group of onlookers from a Ghirlandaio fresco in probability, the source of inspiration as well as the stylistic Santa Trinita, the St Francis Raising a Child from the Dead, or model for their own military drawings at this time. 49 the study of two male heads in profile . from a fresco by Although Degas later maintained or renewed his relation­ Masaccio, reworked by Filippino Lippi, in the :Srancacci ships with some of the Florentines whom he had met in his Chapel, 40 or that of a male onlooker from a scene in Andrea youth - most notably Signorini and Martelli, both of whom del Sarto's Life of S. Filippo Beniz;:;i (the Healing of the Sick travelled many times to France during the following Children by the Garments of the Saint) in the Chiostrino dei Voti decades 5° - there is no evidence of further contact between of SS. Annunziata, illustrated here (Fig.35), 41 Fattori, like Degas and Fattori after the former's second visit to Florence Degas, chose consistently to focus upon a marginal fragment in I86o. When Degas made another trip to Italy early in from a large Renaissance composition, a fragment which I 875, 51 he is known to have visited Signorini's studio in appealed to him as an isolated formal problem, divorced Florence and to have expressed great admiration for a from the broader thematic context of the original work as a painting which he saw there, Signorini's La Sala delle Agitate whole. It is of interest, similarly, to find in notebooks used a S. Bonifazio di Firenze, painted ten years earlier from by Degas during and immediately following the Florentine actual observation of the conditions at a local asylum for the sojourn of I 858-59 a series of sketches devoted to soldiers, 42 insane. 52 If Degas saw Fattori on this occasion, no record a theme uncommon in Degas's ll!uvre 43 but prominent in of their meeting has survived. Nor is there any indication of Fattori's production from I 859 on. 44 Rapid sketches of single contact between them when several months later, in May of figures or composed groups, some actively engaged in I875, Fattori made his first and only trip to Paris for the military combat (e.g., Fig.g8), Degas's drawings, deriving opening of the Salon of that year, at which one of his own their inspiration, it would appear, from artistic convention pictures, Le Repos, was being shown. Travelling "in the and imagination as opposed to immediate observation, are company of several other I tali an artists who were also very similar in conception to some of Fattori's earliest exhibiting at the Salon - among them, , who drawings of military subjects (e.g., Fig.gg), and both in turn later wrote of his companions' enthusiasm on that trip to are related to the military compositions of the well-known France for 'tutta l'arte del I8JO, che piu ci interessava' 63 - graphic illustrator, Denis A. M. Raffet. 45 A close friend and Fattori would probably not have found himself moving at companion to the Russian Prince Anatole Demidoff, with this time in the same circles as his former friend Degas, and whom he had travelled to the Crimea in I837 and to Spain even had they met, it is unlikely that there would still have in I847, Raffet was a frequent guest at San Donato, the been any common ground between them. Although he con­ DemidoffVilla outside of Florence, to which the Macchiaioli sidered himself a 'Realist', Fattori's work and attitudes are known to have had access during the late '5o's. 46 From August of I858 to mid-March of I85g, Raffet was in constant 47 residence at San Donato, at work on the plates for his •• Degas's interest in Raffet at this time is demonstrated too by his drawing in Siege de Rome, 48 which might have been seen in preparation B.N. carnet 16, p.32 after a lithograph by Raffet, the Young Karaime Woman (see REFF [1964], p.257), as well as the inscription which appears on p.S of the during that winter by Fattori and Degas, providing, in all same notebook: 'Jeunefemme Karaime- Raffel 1840- Crimie (notebook used in Florence, Genoa and Paris, 185g-6o; see REFF [1965], p.612). With the arrival of French troops in Florence in May of 1859, some two months after Degas's departure from the city, Raffet, planning an album on •• First published by M. TINTI: Giovanni Fattori, Rome-Milan [1926], pp.23-24; the current French campaign in Italy, was observed sketching the soldiers in see, also, E. CECCHI: 'I Macchiaioli e il '400 toscano', Vita Artistica, I [1926], the regiment of Girolamo Bonaparte who were quartered at the Cascine from P·91-93· 28th May to 16th june. Raffet's activities here, recorded and commented upon u DURBE: Disegni di Fattori, p.18, No.28 verso: 'studio per un personaggio in costume.' by local observers (e.g., MARIO FORESI: Un chirurgo antiquario ed i suoi tempi, As in the cases of five other drawings so described by Durbe but not reproduced Florence [IgiS], p.62, cited by M. GIARDELLI: I Macchiaioli e l'epoca /oro, Milan in the catalogue (verso of26, 27, 29, 30, 31), as well as a sixth drawing described [1958], p.133), stirred considerable interest among local artists, some of whom, as 'studio accademico di gambe' (33 verso), the copy after Del Sarto appears on the including Fattori, were encouraged by his example to undertake their own, verso of a military study which was executed c.186o in preparation for the final on-the-spot sketches of the soldiers and their daily activities. The artistic version of Magenta . The related drawings of which the copy after Del Sarto repercussions of these events as well as the ever-growing vogue for contemporary is one were probably executed as a group somewhat earlier than this and the military subjects which Raffet had partially helped to inspire in Florence might sheets then re-used for the sequence of military studies. still have been felt by Degas on his return to that city in April of 186o, for at the During his 1858-59 stay in Florence, Degas also executed copies after works exhibition of the Promotrice, which opened that year on 30th April (Monitore in the Cloister of SS. Annunziata, including a drawing after Del Sarto's S. Toscano, No.105, 24th April 186o, p.3), two pictures were exhibited by local Filippo Benizzi Healing the Lepers (Edgar Degas, 4m• et demiere vente, Paris, Galerie artists on the theme of the French soldiers camped at the Cascine (GIARDELLI, Georges Petit, 2nd, 3rd, 4th July 1919, No.107a; identified by REFF [1963], op. cit., p.133), and Fattori himself had just recently entered his bozzetto for the p.251). This, as well as a drawing after Pontormo's Visitation (4th sale, No.95a), Battaglia di Magenta in the Ricasoli competition, the favourable outcome of was probably executed in late August or early September of 1858, a period which would be announced in the Monitore Toscano on 12th May 186o (see during which Degas is known to have had official permission to work in the DURBE: Disegni di Fattori, p.14). Annunziata (see VITALI, art. cit., p.269). 60 Signorini was in Paris in 1861, 1873-74, 1878, 1879, 1881 and 1884 (see his u B.N. carnet 18, pp.7o, 71, 74, 84; B.N. carnet 16, pp.78, 79, 114, 115, 127; autobiographical letter written in 1892 to the President of the R. Accademia di B.N. carnet 1, p.66. On the dating of these, see REFF [1965],j.612. B.A. in Firenze, SoMARE: SIGNORINI, pp.277-79; also, VITALI : Lettere, pp.113-17)· u An earlier group of drawings on this theme, much simpler an more tentative Martelli took three trips to Paris, in 1862-63, 1868, and 1878-79 (see 'Dati in execution than the group cited above, appears in a notebook which Degas biografici' in Scritti d'arte di Diego Martelli, ed. A. EOSCHETTO, Florence [1952], used in Paris between December of 1855 and January of 1856 (B.N. carnet 13, P·9l· pp. A-E, 1-21, cited by REFF [1965], p.611 and n.36). 61 Probably for the purpose of settling the estate of his father, Auguste De Gas. •• Of the 804 oil paintings by Fattori which are catalogued by MALESCI, 234 Degas had also travelled to Italy in December of 1873 to see his father who are listed under the thematic heading of 'Soggetti militari (MALESCI, Nos.I21-354, was then ill and who died in Naples in February of 1874 (CABANNE, op. cit., PP·358-78). P·97)· n The resemblance between Fattori's early military studies and the style of •• Known from a letter written by Camille Desboutin to Telemaco Signorini, Raffet has been pointed out by DURBE: Disegni di Fattori, p.11. dated 16th April 1875: 'Mon cher Signorini ... Degas a eu him de Ia chance de uSee SIGNORINI: Caricaturisti [1952], p.118. pouvoir retoumer dans votre brillante ltalie ... Je sais par Degas que vous travaillez •• Established by notes in Raffet's journal, published as Notes et Croquis de fructueusement et originalement. II a iti Ires frappe de votre tendence artistique, et votre Raffet, edited by the artist's son, Auguste Raffet, Paris [1878], pp.131-32; also, tableau des Foiles I'a tout i1 fait enthousiasme comme une euvre forte et originale • . .' the report of Raffet's printer and biographer, AUGUSTE BRY: Raffit, sa vie et ses (sOMARE: Signorini, p.36). euvres, Paris [1861], pp.89, 91. Signorini's painting, today in the Galleria d'arte moderna in , is •• BRY, op. cit., pp.90- 91 , lists the plates that were completed and submitted to reproduced in SOMARE: Signorini, pl.13. him during this period. •• Catalogo della XI Biennale [1914], p.u6; cited by VITALI: Lettere, p.36, n.2. 732 28. Vel vet, polychrome, Mug­ 29. Detai l from the Velvet reproduced in Fig.28. hal 165o- 6o. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art, No.7 1.1 3.)

~o. Mu!!hal oaintinl!' of Eurooeans. seventeenth centurv. (Victoria ~ 1. Detail from Shah Ta han nama. f. Q7v. IR oval Librarv. Windsor 32. Edgar Degas, by Giovanni Fattori. c. I86o. Pencil , 24·6 by I8·8 em. 33· Degas and De Valemes, by Edgar Degas. c. I 864. Canvas, I I 6 by 84 em. (Museo Civico, Leghorn.) Photo: Soprintenden:::a aile Gallerie, Roma II. (Musee du Louvre.) Photo: Bulloz.

35· Copy of figure from Andrea del · arto's Healing qf the Sick Children by the Garments of S. Filippo Benizzi in the Chiostrino dei Voti of . Annunziata in Florence, by Giovanni Fattori. c.1859· Pencil , 28·g by 34· Self-Portrait, by Giovanni Fattori. 1854· Canvas, 59 by 46·5 em. 21·8 em. (Museo Civico, Leghorn.) Photo: Soprintendenza aile Gallerie, (Galleria d'Artc Moderna, Florence. ) Photo: Alinari. Roma, II. i\1/ary tuart at the Camp ofCrookstone, by G iovanni Fattori. 1859. 'l7· The Italian Camp after the Battle of Nfagenta, Event of 4th J une 1859, by G iovanni Fattori . 1859- 62. d'Anc M odcrna, Fl orence.) Photo: Alinari. Canvas, 232 by 348 em. (Gall eria d 'Arte M oderna, Florence.) Photo: Alinari.

38. Soldiers Charging, by Edgar Degas. c. 185g. Pencil , 14·3 by 10 em. (Bi bliothe.:juc Nationale De. 327d 39· Soldiers Charging, by Giovanni Fattori. c. 1859· Pencil and brown ink, 21 by 30·7 em. (Museo Civico, Leghorn. ) reserve, carnet 16 p. 78. ) Photo: Soprintendenza alle Gallerie, P.oma lf. 40· Portrait of the Cas/rato Farinelli, by J acopo Amigoni. Canvas, 277 by I86 em. (Museum or the Roma nian Socialist Republic, Bucha rest.) 42. Mercu~v a11d Argus, by J acopo Amigoni. C«nvas, 76 by 63·5 em. (G miildegalerie, Dresden.) A NEWLY-IDENTIFIED PORTRAIT DRAWING OF DEGAS BY GIOVANNI FATTORI towards art had diverged greatly from Degas's since the days G. B. Visconti's Projected Sources of their earlier and altogether temporary affinity. Since I86g a professor of painting at the Florentine Academy, Fattori's for the Museo Clementino reputation had been built locally during the 186o's ~nd '7o's upon the basis of a number of large and grandiOse BY SEYMOUR HOWARD depictions of the major battles of the Italian Risorgimento. AMONG the Visconti papers in the Vatican Ferrajoli manuscripts Although he branched out subsequently to other themes is an untitled sheet identifying the important antiquarian dealers from contemporary Italian life- in the mid '6o's, groups of active in Rome during the third quarter of the eighteenth dignified and statuesque Tuscan peasant women, serenely century. at work in the fields (e.g. M.63 1, 636, 640, 643), and later, during the '8o's and 'go's in particular, monumentalized [I] Pietro Pacitti, suo studio poco prima dell' area della Regina/alta Trinita de manti. interpretations of the horsemarkets, cowboys and cattle [ 2] Cavalier Piranesi, accanto il portone Tomati in strada felice. herds of the Tuscan Maremma (e.g., M.6gg, 701, 702, 722, [3] Agostino Penna, accanto le scale della T rinita de manti. 743, 762) - these were never treated by Fattor.i as m~re [4] Filippo Tenti, passata la Chiesa diS. Giuseppe a capo le case/per slice-of-life bits of realism, but as very formal and rmpressrve andare alii due macelli. recordings of what, for the artist, were socially significant [5] [C?]ollino Morison, alla fine di biazza di Spagna, casamento aspects of contemporary history. nuovofcon persiane, ultimo appartamento. [6] Domenico de Angelis, al prima piano del sopradetto casamento,fe piazza di Spagna. Shorter Notices [7] Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, passata La Chiesa de Greci, incontroflo spaccio di polvere di Cipro; altro suo studio nel vico-flo del Giesu Jacopo Amigoni in England Maria. [8] Giuseppe Nollekens, nel vicolo passato it babbuino, su la mana/ BY ADRIAN BAIRD sinistra, rimessa con porta inverniciata. 1 THE portrait (Fig.4o) by Jacopo Amigoni of his friend, the [9] Gioacr.hino Falcioni, alia fine de strada Margutta incon-ftro it celebrated castrate Farinelli, has long been known from the gioco liseio, detto, di Chiavarino. engraving made of it in London by Joseph Wagner. The painting [I o] Giuseppe Angelini, al vicolo de fienili al Popolo prima/ di arrivare itself was apparently taken with him back to Italy by Farinelli at lavatoio. when he eventually returned home; it was later acquired by [I I] T ommaso Gengkins casamento doppo S. Giacomo degl'incufrabili Felix Bamberg, who sold it to King Carol I of Romania in 1889; passato il Tinozzaro. it reached its present home, the Museum of the Romanian [I2] Belisario Amidei incontro la Chiesa di S. Agnese in pi-fazza 2 Socialist Republic in 1949. The execution of the painting can be navona, secondo piano. dated precisely between 1734, when Farinelli first came to [verso] England and 1736, when Amigoni and Farinelli left London for [ 13] Conte Fede, a strada pontifici poco prima del palazzo/del Marchese France. Corea. Farinelli's success in England was explosive, and the box-office [I 4] Gavino Hamilton, Casamento nuovo al principia del vicolofde takings from his two years in this country paid for the building Zucchelli, ultimo piano. of a villa which Burney says he named 'The English Folly'. His [I5] [L?] Cardelli-entrando nella strada condotti dallafparte del depiction in the portrait is in the best operatic style, the. sing~r Corso, prima vicolo su la sinistrafprima de giungere alfaco[c?]chio. crowned by Euterpe while Fame trumpets her part behmd; 1t [I6] Vinelli Scarpellino in campo vaccino accontofla colonna da Li Giov1 gives some idea of what Amigoni's famous stage designs may Custode. 1 have been like. There must have been a great demand for pictures of this operatic prodigy, and Wagner made two en­ To judge from the handwriting and contents, the list was made gravings after the Bucharest portrait, one showing the whole by the Assessor of Antiquities, Alessandro Bracci, for the new composition, and one the bust only, this latter dated 1735· Commissioner of Antiquities, Giovanni Battista Visconti, ap­ The paintings which Amigoni executed for Benjamin Styles pointed shortly after the death of Winckelmann, in 1768. 2 The around 1732 to decorate the hall of his house at Moor Park are document has interest partly because of the names and addresses, still in situ, and are well known. Two autograph sketches for two a selection and ordering that reads like a cicerone's round of major pictures in the series have recently appeared. The first (Fig.42) has art galleries from the Pincio through the Campo Marzo. Various been in the Dresden State Gallery since 1927 with an attribution to of the antiquarians were best known as excavators [6, 13, 14], 3 Pellegrini, and was almost certainly bought in England. The agents [5, 11, 14], restorers [1, 3, 7, 8, 10], or journeymen-crafts­ second (Fig-41) appeared recently at a London saleroom and was men [4, 9, 15, 16]; but all trafficked in ancient sculptures, with acquired by the Tate Gallery. 4 In both, there are differences in the background between the sketch and the finished work, but the figures correspond fairly closely. The lively and spontaneous brush­ work of these sketches gives one a quite different impression of Amigoni's art from the carefully finished, if light-hearted history 1 Vatican Library, Ferrajoli MSS, folio g6g, No.38, p.326 and verso. The first pictures and portraits that one usually associates with his name, and last entries are transcribed in the inventory of the collection by F. A. BERRA: and makes the attribution of the Dresden picture to Pellegrini Codices Ferrajoli, Vatican [1g6o), III, P·572· • Many notes and signatures in the handwritings of Bracci as Assessor ( 1 764-86) quite intelligible. and Visconti as Commissioner (1768-84) can be compared on the same export petitions submitted by dealers in art to the papal Camerlengato (Rome, State 1 Oil on canvas, 277 by 186 em., Bucharest G~llery inve~tory 671/8637 G.G. Archives, Camerale MSS, II, Antichita e belle arti, folios 12 ff., Esportazione • Information kindly supplied by M. Anatohe Teodos1u of the Bucharest di oggetti d'antichita e belle arti, abstracted, in part, by A . BERTOLOTir: Gallery. . a Information supplied by Dr A. Walther of the Dresden Gallery. 0•1 on 'Esportazione di ogg«tti di belle arti da Roma nei secoli XVI, XVII, e XVIII', canvas, 76 by 63·5 em., Dresden 193.0 inventory 553a (under Pellegrini). Archivio storico artistico archeologico e letterario della citta e provincia di Rom a [ 1875-], • Oil " " ronvo<. flo hv ll~ r.m. Tate mventorv T 1200. I-IV. bassim).