VP4570

CAJETAN ROOS (Rome 1690 – 1770 Vienna)

Noah’s Ark

On canvas, with a shaped top, 84¼ x 57½ ins. (214 x 146 cm)

PROVENANCE Private Collection, France, since at least the nineteenth century

NARRATIVE Cajetan Roos, or Gaetano Rosa, as he was known, came from a large family of German painters. Five generations of the family painted animals, landscapes and portraits, beginning with Johann Heinrich Roos (1631-1685) and ending with his great-great-grandson Joseph Roos II (1760-1822). The most famous family members were Johann Heinrich, the father of the dynasty, and his two elder sons Philipp Peter Roos (1657-1706) and Johann Melchior Roos (1663-1731. The author of this painting, Cajetan Roos, was the son and pupil of Philip Peter Roos.

Like many artists who lived during the seventeenth century, a period when much of Europe was disrupted by wars and religious strife, the Roos family moved about frequently in pursuit of their careers. Johann Heinrich was born in in 1631, but trained in . He specialised in idyllic pastoral scenes with herdsmen and livestock in the manner of such Dutch Italianate painters as Nicolaes Berchem and . His eldest son Philipp Peter Roos was born in am Main and trained with his father before going to Italy in 1677. In Rome, he became a member of the Schildersbent, the fraternity of Northern painters in Rome, and was given the nickname, “Mercurius”. In 1681, he married Maria Isabella, daughter of the painter Giacinto Brandi. Subsequently he bought a large house in Tivoli, which gave rise to his soubriquet “Rosa da Tivoli”, where he is said to have kept a menagerie of animals so that he could draw them from life. The house was called “Noah’s Ark” by his friends. Philipp Peter specialised in close-up views of domestic animals and their herdsmen in the Roman campagna. Two of his sons, Jakob Roos (Rosa da Napoli) and Cajetan Roos (Gaetano Rosa) followed in their father’s footsteps, becoming painters. Cajetan, the younger of two, was born in Rome in 1690 and trained with his father. Initially, he painted Italian landscape with animals and herdsman in the manner of his father, but after settling in Vienna in 1720, he also turned his hand to painting altarpieces for Austrian churches.

In this impressive painting, Cajetan depicts episodes from the biblical story of Noah and the Flood taken from the Book of Genesis. A popular subject in Christian art from an early date, it was naturally ideally suited to an animal specialist since it called for the representation of an encyclopaedic array of creatures. As the Bible relates, God spared Noah and his family by forewarning about the impending deluge, which he unleashed against the sins of humanity. Noah obeyed God’s commandment and built an ark to save his family and two of every kind of animal species. When the boat was ready, Noah and his family entered the ark together with all the animals (Genesis 6:14-22). It rained for forty days and forty nights until even the mountains were covered with water and the flood lasted for one hundred and fifty days. When the waters eventually began to subside the ark came to rest on the summit of Mount Ararat. To find out whether the earth was habitable again Noah released a raven which did not return. He then twice sent out a dove which returned the second time with an olive branch in its beak. Only then did he lead out his family and animals out of the ark (Genesis 7:8:1-19). Roos has chosen to capture this moment in his painting. The ark appears in the top right of the picture, perched on the mountain top. Ruins and palm trees dot the landscape, giving it an exotic air. One’s eye follows the parade of animals that descends from the upper right of the painting to the left foreground. All manner of birds, reptiles and quadrupeds can be seen, making their way down the mountainside in pairs, from bears, monkeys, wolves, elephants, ostriches and camels, to dogs, goats, peacocks, wild boar, porcupines, snakes and lizards. Domestic animals appear quite happily alongside their wild counterparts: a stallion and a mare appear in the foreground in close proximity to a lion and a lioness, a ram and a ewe, a nanny and billy goat and a pair of dogs.

In the upper right corner of the picture, Noah and his family give thanks to God for saving them from the flood. God then blesses Noah and his children, inviting them to go forth and repopulate the earth. In addition, the Creator sanctions a covenant with Noah, his children and their descendants and every creature on earth. As a sign of this covenant, he causes a rainbow to appear among the clouds (Genesis 8:20-22; 9:1-17).

P.M.