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Giorgione's Tempest or 'little landscape with the storm with the gypsy': more on the gypsy, and a reassessment
Article
12 Feb 2009
This article on the interpretation of Giorgione's Tempest was first published in Art History, vol. 18, no. 3, September 1995. In re-publishing the article here I intend to meet criticisms, update my citations, revise where necessary and solicit further discussion of points at issue.  Details
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No published author or critic of the sixteenth, seventeenth or eighteenth century mentions Glorgione's Tempest (plate 1). Although it was recorded in Marcantonio Michiel's manuscript notes on art around 1530 and has been traced in two inventories, of 1569 and 1601, the painting remained effectively unknown until some time after Morelli's publication of Michiel's manuscript Notizia in 1800.[1] In the annotation to his edition, Morelli did not associate Michiel's report with the painting then in the Manfrin collection, but he made the identification later, and at some time before his death in 1819 noted it in a personal copy of his publication, now in the Biblioteca Marciana.[2] In 1817 Byron saw a ‘Family of the Painter’ by Glorgione in the Manfrin collection, which without doubt was the picture seen by Michiel and formerly owned by the Vendramin family. [3] In 1875 the painting passed from the Manfrin to the Giovanelli collection, and from the Giovanelli collection was acquired for the Venice Accademia in 1932.
FOOTNOTES
1 Giorgione's painting is T. Pignatti, Giorgione, Venice, 1969, cat. 13; also C. Hornig, Giorgiones Spätwork, Munich, 1987, cat. 11. Apart from books or articles cited as appropriate below, some more recent bibliography on the subject is given in note 8 below.
2 Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, Archivio Morelliano 73 (= 12579), p. 80: ‘É nella Galleria del C[onte] Girolamo Manfrin.’
3 M. Calvesi, ‘La Tempesta di Giorgione come Ritrovamento di Mosè’, Commentari, July–December 1962, p. 226, at note 2. Calvesi's idea that Byron saw some other picture with the same title and that the Tempest was acquired by Manfrin at some later date is misconceived and disproved by Morelli's note.
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Some further work on the provenance of ex-Vendramin pictures has surely been done since publication of this article, and I would welcome updates.PH By Paul Holberton 04 Mar 2009 |
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14. Lucas Cranach, Holy Family resting on the Flight to Egypt, dated 1504, oil on beechwood, 70.7 x 53 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz Gemäldegalerie (564A)
1. Giorgione, The Tempest, oil on canvas, 83 x 73 cm, Venice, Galleria della Accademia
10. Piero di Cosimo, Vulcan and Aeolus (The Invention of the Horseshoe), oil on panel, 155.6 x 166.4 cm, Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada
11. Albrecht Altdorfer, Satyr Family looking on while a Wildman attacks a Traveller, dated 1507, oil on panel, 23 x 20.5 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
7. Jacopo de' barbari, Gypsy Family, engraving, plate 117 x 99 mm (Hind 4)
8. Reconstruction by Morassi (Le Arti, 1939) of the figure revealed by X-ray beneath present paint layer of Giorgione's Tempest
4a. Jacopo de Barbari, Gypsy Woman, engraving, 85 x 43 mm (Hind 16)
3. Nicoletto da Modena, after Dürer (Bartsch 85), Gypsy Family, engraving, 124 x 89 mm (Hind 100)
2. Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet (Housebook Master), Gypsy Family, etching, 82 x 61 mm, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (Lehrs 65)
6. David Teniers after Giorgione, The Birth of Paris, private coll.
5. After Hans Burgkmair, Gypsy Family at Rest, pen and ink drawing, 243 x 308 mm, Veste Coburg
9. After David Teniers, after Giorgione, The Rape, engraving from the Theatrum Pictorium (in reverse to original painting)
4b. Jacopo de' Barbari, Gypsy Man, engraving, 85 x 43 mm (Hind 17)
15. Artist in the circle of Rembrandt, after an early 16th-century Venetian artist close to Giorgione, Landscape with Figures, pen and bistre drawing, washed ground, 234 x 203 mm, Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth (914)
13. Leonardo da Vinci, Studies for Leda, drawing (detail of sheet), whole sheet 287 x 405 mm, Royal Library, Windsor Castle
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Paul Holberton
United Kingdom, London |