The Frick Collection Members’ Magazine Fall 2004 / 2003 Annual Report
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The Frick Collection Members’ Magazine Fall 2004 / 2003 Annual Report Upcoming Exhibition European Bronzes from the Quentin Collection page 2 Permanent Collection A Gilded Age Studiolo: The Enamels Room in The Frick Collection page 6 Collection News Raphael’s Fornarina on Loan from the Palazzo Barberini in Rome page 10 Education Frick Awards Prize to Student Essayist for Excellence in Writing page 11 Library Artist Sketchbooks and Facsimiles Provide Glimpse into Artistic Process page 12 Community Programs and Member Events: Art Dealers Breakfast, Dialogues on Art, Spring Party page 14 Table of Contents The Frick Collection 2003 Annual Report page 16 Fall Calendar Lectures, Concerts, Museum Shop page 40 on our cover: Jean de Court (Master I. C.), detail of The Adoration of the Shepherds, c. 1555–85, enamel plaque, The Frick Collection photograph by richard di liberto upcoming exhibition European Bronzes from the Quentin Collection September 28 through January 2, 2005 he Frick Collection is pleased to have as its visitors can appreciate the union of T special fall exhibition European Bronzes naturalistic illusion and technical artistry from the Quentin Collection, the first public that is the hallmark of the greatest figura- presentation of a distinguished private tive statuettes. Most of the sculptures are collection devoted to the art of the six- shown freestanding and without vitrines. teenth- through eighteenth-century In the instance of Giambologna’s Striding statuette. The almost forty sculp- Mars (opposite page), this freedom of view- tures, primarily in bronze with point allows us to experience how the late some in terracotta or precious sixteenth-century master used the expres- metal, have been discriminat- sive logic of pose to identify the god of war ingly assembled over the last with martial readiness. twenty-five years. Many, like His eyes fixed on the enemy, Mars halts Giambologna’s Sleeping Nymph his stride, exploiting the force of arrested and Striding Mars, are outstanding motion to swing his body and sword arm little-known examples of famous composi- backward in preparation for attack. His free tions. Other masterpieces, like the mysterious arm sweeps forward to balance his rotating Allegorical Deity Seated on Grotesques, are new movement, his hand frozen at the instant it discoveries exhibited here for the first time. most resembles a gesture of command. By The Quentin Collection contains some of the depicting Mars ready to strike, Giambologna best examples by generations of European celebrates the power and resolve leaders master sculptors who were challenged by needed to wage war, or to prevent it. Late the creative potential of the human form. Renaissance rulers appreciated this ennobling The compositional inventiveness, tech- message, and the Striding Mars became a nical refinement, and sheer quality of featured addition to their collections. No these sculptures endow the collection less coveted by princes and kings for its with its particular character. The masterful artistry, Giambologna’s Mars exhibition’s gathering of power- displays the sculptor’s ability to depict the ful, elegantly idealized nudes subtle movements of muscles bunching provides a focused under skin, of eyes tightening in concen- introduction to the tration, of lips parting to draw breath. This pleasures offered by virtuoso combination of illusionism and the bronze statuette. technique is even more astonishing when At the Frick the one considers that the Mars is only about Quentin Collection fifteen inches tall. sculptures will be The Mars’s focused compression is typical displayed so that of statuettes, for these small works were Hercules and Antaeus, probably northern Italy, 1500–25,bronze on late Renaissance base of painted wood. All works illustrated are from the Quentin Collection. 2 The Frick Collection upcoming exhibition Like the Allegorical Deity, left: Giambologna (1529–1608), Sleeping Nymph, each small bronze was made bronze modeled before 1584 to evoke multiple associations that captivated the rulers and below: Giambologna, overall and detail of Striding Mars, wealthy educated classes who bronze modeled between late 1560s and early collected them. The more 1570s and cast before 1577, probably by Fra Domenico Portigiani we know about this history, the richer our understand- ments, miraculously restored, into the hands intended to delight and engage their audi- ing of this art form becomes. During the of his patrons. The sculptor also masterfully ence over countless viewings. Such is the case Renaissance collectors and sculptors often exploited his medium, using the metal’s of the Allegorical Deity Seated on Grotesques looked to classical antiquity for inspiration. inherent tensile strength to mimic Hercules’ (page 4, top), sometimes attributed to the The anonymous early sixteenth-century strength: as the hero hoists Antaeus into the Dutch sculptor Adrian de Vries. Although northern Italian master of the Hercules and air, the giant’s legs dangle without the strutted the subject of this complex group has thus Antaeus (page 2) based his composition on supports required by the original marble. far remained a mystery, it is likely that the an over-life-size classical marble fragment, The composition’s angular geometry and the deity who sits astride bat-winged monsters then known (even in its ruined state) figures’ blocky, flexed muscles cleverly represents Saturn, one of the four planetary as “the most beautiful statue in echo the group’s marble origins and gods in Renaissance depictions of the cosmos. Rome.” By imaginatively recon- remind us that bronze is a molten In this role, Saturn was associated with structing the monumental, medium that can take almost aspects from other universal quaternary fragmentary marble in any form, its protean char- groups: from the four elements, earth; from small-scale bronze, the acter limited chiefly the seasons, autumn; from the times of day, sculptor rivaled the by the artist’s ability twilight; from the ages of man, maturity; and greatest achievements to manipulate it. from the temperaments, melancholy. As of the past and literally Renaissance Saturn, the Allegorical Deity is depicted as placed those achieve- statuettes often the lord of twilight, carried through the were displayed in heavens by bat-winged creatures symbolic the more private con- of that time of day. He is seated on ripened fines of the collec- fruit and holds leaf-studded branches to tor’s house or palace, signify that he rules autumn, the harvest sea- where they were son. His robust body and bearded face are occasionally placed signs of maturity, the penultimate stage of on tables so that life, and his introverted expression conveys they could be his state of melancholy. The Allegorical Deity’s encompassing conceptual elegance attests to the inspired efforts of sculptors who, like all Renaissance artists, believed their creative powers were engendered under Saturn’s influence. upcoming exhibition turned, touched, and held. This intimate the power to awaken this Sleeping Nymph relationship between viewer and object from dreamlike repose. inspired sculptors. Sometime before 1584 Baroque statuettes, like Giambologna crafted the smooth, lacquered Francesco Fanelli’s Mercury surfaces of the voluptuous Sleeping Nymph and Cupid (below) were (page 3, top) to beguile the viewer’s sense often larger than their of touch as well as sight. Giambologna’s Renaissance counterparts. sensual conception springs from the At almost three feet tall, the sixteenth-century interest in the Mercury and Cupid’s size and dramatic, elevated and isolated on a pedestal, the sleeping female figure. In Venice the sweeping forms were meant to Mercury and Cupid would have engaged subject was popularized by a woodcut harmonize with grand public viewers with a directness impossible for image of a sleeping nymph spaces, like the picture gal- paintings. Fanelli creates his narrative with from the book The Dream of leries typical of the seven- the dramatic compression typical of sculp- Poliphilus and was echoed in teenth century. The sculpture’s ture. The composition’s graceful torsion the paintings of Giorgione. In subject is drawn from Apuleius’ invites viewers to walk round the work and Rome a monumental classical tale of the star-crossed lovers unfold the tale. marble statue of the sleeping Cupid and Psyche and illustrates The sculptor’s concise language of Ariadne represented this para- Mercury about to proclaim that pose and gesture is movingly expressed by digm, and Giambologna’s Nymph Psyche must be returned to Massimiliano Soldani’s Pietà (page 5). Made adopts the languid pose of that the bondage of Cupid’s jeal- during the early eighteenth century when famous antiquity. In Florence, home ous mother, Venus. Fanelli Soldani was a master medalist to the of Giambologna and his Medici depicts the winged god with Florentine grand dukes, the Pietà is one of patrons, the subject was identified with his messenger’s trumpet in the latest works in the Quentin Collection Michelangelo’s celebrated monumental hand, poised at the instant of and one of the few in terracotta (fired marble sculpture of Night. Florentine flight on cloudy winds that clay). Soldani’s dead Christ with mourning writers praised Michelangelo for per- loft him skywards. The little angels is a compianto, an image intended fectly capturing Night’s sleep, Cupid clutching Mercury’s leg for use during the Catholic devotions, noting that her viewers appears heavy by contrast, as he which aroused compassionate empathy for remained silent, lest their wields his weight like a ballast stone the Savior’s passion and death. Christ’s voices wake her from stony in a desperate attempt to halt the fate- body is gently elevated toward the viewer, slumber. Giambologna’s ful departure. Cupid merely earns exposing the bloody lance wound at his Nymph wittily plays, instead, Mercury’s backward glance, and the side. The crown of thorns and nails lie on on the relationship between lovers’ cruel separation is sealed by the the stony ground below.