Titian’s
so-called “Madonna of the Rabbit,” currently hangs in the Louvre whose website notes
the popular title but more accurately labels the painting as “The Virgin and
Child with St. Catherine and a Shepherd, known as the Madonna of the Rabbit.”
Actually, a better title would be “The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine,” a
common devotional subject during the Renaissance. Below
I reproduce an interpretive essay that takes issue with the Louvre and others
about two important details in the painting.
In
the first place, I do not believe that Titian has depicted a shepherd in this
painting. In my interpretation the man dressed
in rustic attire in the mid-ground is St. Joseph, the protector of Mary and the
infant Jesus. He is often included in versions of the Mystic Marriage by
Venetian Renaissance artists.
Secondly, I
disagree with the Louvre’s explanation that the white rabbit is a sign of
Mary’s virginal fecundity. X-ray examination has shown that the rabbit was not
originally present. Initially, Titian placed Mary’s left arm on her lap. Why,
on second thought, did he add the white rabbit? The following essay argues that the white
rabbit is the equivalent of the Eucharistic host.
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Titian’s
“Virgin and Child with Saint Catherine and a Shepherd” is commonly called the
“Madonna of the Rabbit” because of the white rabbit prominently featured in the
center. The rabbit is held by the Madonna with a thin white cloth that is
hardly visible today. The relatively small painting (71 x 87 cm.) that bears
Titian’s own signature is in the Louvre and most scholars date it to 1530
although some believe it could have been laid in as early as 1520.
The
Louvre’s website provides a very comprehensive audio-visual examination of the
painting featuring curator Jean Habert. He begins with a discussion of Titian’s
naturalism and suggests that these figures in a landscape could almost be a
genre painting, something like a picnic in the countryside. Nevertheless, Habert
admits that it is obviously a religious painting and a “sacra conversazione” in
particular. The Madonna and Child are in conversation with St. Catherine while
the shepherd off to the right represents pagan antiquity.
This
description echoes what can be found in a number of catalogues beginning with
the 1991 “Titian, Prince of Painters” where the essay on the painting was also written
by Habert. Subsequently, Filippo Pedrocco discussed the painting in his Titian
catalog of 2001, and then two years later David Jaffe wrote the article in
another exhibition catalog, entitled simply “Titian”.
Despite
this virtual unanimity the painting is still largely misunderstood. The title,
Madonna of the Rabbit, is almost childish and the painting is not a “sacra conversazione.”
The painting is a version of the “Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine,” a very
popular subject in the early sixteenth century.
It
is very difficult for scholars today to understand the importance of St.
Catherine in the Renaissance. It would even be difficult for a modern devout
Catholic. Writing in the nineteenth century Anna Jameson noted that Saints
Catherine, Barbara, Ursula, and Margaret were in a class by themselves.
Other female martyrs were merely women
glorified in heaven, for virtues exercised on earth; but these were absolutely, in all but the name, Divinities… with regard
to these, all such traces of an
individual existence seem to have been completely merged in the abstract ideas
they represented. The worship of the others was confined to certain localities,
certain occasions; but these were
invoked everywhere, and at all seasons; they were powers…and though the Church assumed that theirs was a delegated
power, it was never so considered by the people. They were styled intercessors;
for when a man addressed his prayers to St. Catherine to obtain a boon, it was
with the full conviction that she had power to grant it. *
In
“Sacred and Legendary Art” Mrs. Jameson devoted a long section to St.
Catherine, her legend, and her representations in art. Although largely
forgotten today, the legend must have been well known during the Renaissance
especially given the fact that the famous monastery that bore her name on Mt.
Sinai had become a favorite pilgrimage site. Let me just paraphrase Mrs.
Jameson’s telling of the story with special attention to elements that might
help to explain Titian’s painting.
According
to the legend Catherine was born late in the third century to the pagan King
and Queen of Egypt. By the time she was fourteen the young princess had already
won renown for her great beauty and intellect. At that point her father died
and she acceded to the throne. Despite her breeding and wisdom, her noble
subjects insisted that she find a husband who could assist her in governing the
Kingdom. She agreed but only if they could find a man whose wisdom and wealth
exceeded her own. Of course, no such man could be found.
However,
the Madonna, from her place in heaven, intervened and directed an Egyptian
hermit to approach Catherine and tell her that Mary’s son is more than worthy
of her hand. Then, Catherine has a dream and is taken up into the heavens where
she enters into a room filled with beautiful saints and angels. They take her
deeper into the sanctuary where she is introduced to Madonna herself, who then escorts
her into the presence of her Son. But Jesus turns away and refuses to accept
her. At this point, an anguished Catherine wakes from her dream. What had gone
wrong? She seeks out the hermit who tells her she was rejected because she was
a heathen. Immediately, Catherine takes instruction and is baptized a
Christian.
Now
Catherine has another dream. Once again she is welcomed into Heaven and ushered
into the presence of the Madonna who presents her to her son and vouches for
her by saying that she herself has become godmother to Catherine at the
baptism. This time the Lord accepts Catherine and places a ring on her finger,
a ring that is still there when she wakes from the dream.
It
is only after this “mystical marriage” that Catherine would go on to suffer
torture and death at the hands of a cruel Roman tyrant whose offers of marriage
she spurns.
Titian’s
painting is not about historical accuracy. It is an account of Catherine’s
dream. Painters typically portrayed the mystical marriage as taking place in
the Egyptian desert three hundred years before the time of Catherine. The Holy
Family is returning from their sojourn in Egypt when Catherine comes upon them.
In
Titian’s version of the Mystic marriage Catherine is easily identified by her
regal, golden finery although she is somewhat disheveled. Her red robe has
fallen around her thighs. She kneels on a wooden box that most commentators
have identified as the broken wheel, the famous instrument of her later torture.
She has taken the Christ Child in her arms and while he looks away at the
rabbit, he strokes her chin with his hand.
Madonna
sits on the ground wearing her familiar red dress and blue robe. She has
obviously handed the child off to Catherine but still looks intently at him.
Scientific investigation of the underpainting has revealed that she was
originally looking at the man off to the side. Her right arm is hidden but her
left hand holds, with a hardly visible white cloth, a striking white rabbit.
The
man on the right dressed in rustic clothing is usually called a shepherd but he
can only be St. Joseph. Who else would be with Mary and the Child in the
Egyptian desert? In contemporary paintings of the same subject by Paris Bordone
and Lorenzo Lotto he would figure even more prominently. Both Bordone and Lotto
portrayed Joseph as quite young and virile and in one Bordone version, now in
the Hermitage, Joseph’s garb is also rustic.
 |
| Paris Bordone: Mystic Marriage Hermitage |
Moreover, even when commentators have
called him a shepherd, they note some regal features like the laurel wreath in
his hair. Some think it might even be a portrait of Titian’s noble patron. The
fact that the underpainting shows that the Madonna was originally looking at
him also points to his elevated status. Joseph sits on the ground stroking
another animal, either a black sheep or ram.
Titian’s
“Madonna of the Rabbit” is full of Eucharistic significance. In the 1991
catalog entry Jean Habert noted:
The fruit in the basket…gives the scene,
notwithstanding the naturalism of a motif that indicates autumn, a mystical
significance of redemption, since these fruits are the symbols of the Passion
(original sin redeemed by the wine of the Eucharist). **
There
is much more than the fruit in the basket to indicate the Eucharist. The
strawberry plant in front of St. Catherine is often associated with an earthly
paradise, but can also symbolize the Passion. The prominent plant in the
foreground to the viewer’s right appears to be the cinquefoil (Potentilla
simplex), with its characteristic five pointed leaf. It was common in Europe
and was often used in Medieval architectural decoration. This painting would
seem to indicate that its five leaves symbolize the five wounds of Christ.
The
Passion of Christ was re-enacted at every Mass and in Franciscan theology Mary was
regarded as the altar on which her child is consecrated. Her infant son and the
symbolic white rabbit are one and the same. The Infant looks at the rabbit to
affirm their identity. Habert claimed that the rabbit is a sign of Mary’s
purity or fecundity but why then would she be holding it with a white cloth? In
her study of Titian’s famed Pesaro altarpiece Rona Goffen noted the symbolism
of the white cloth or corporale. The corporale is always placed on the altar
on which the host rests. ***
Catherine
like all her pious admirers has just offered herself to the Lord and now
receives Him from Mary. Catherine herself holds the Infant with a white cloth. It’s
as if she had just been handed the communion host by a priest. Joseph sits off
to the right and strokes a black sheep or ram, itself recalling the Eucharistic
symbolism of the scapegoat from Leviticus 16:20-22.
“When Aaron has finished making
atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall
bring forward the live goat. 21 He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over
it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put
them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the
care of someone appointed for the task. 22 The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and
the man shall release it in the wilderness.”
Years
ago famed art historian Erwin Panofsky noted that it is important to go beyond
the naturalism and beauty of these famous and mysterious Renaissance paintings.
In a work of art, “form” cannot be divorced
from “content”; the distribution of color and lines, light and shade, volumes
and planes, however delightful as a spectacle, must also be understood as
carrying a more-than-visual meaning. ****
In
the years immediately following the onset of the Protestant Reformation, the
Catholic Church responded with renewed devotion to the Eucharist. Artists and
their patrons naturally followed suit. Titian, Bordone, and Lotto became
increasingly responsive to the devotional needs of their patrons.
* Anna
Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, ed. By Estelle H. Hurrl, II, Boston
and New York, 1895, v. II, 458.
**Titian,
Prince of Painters, 1991, cat. entry #23.
***
Rona Goffen, Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Yale, 1986, 114.
****Titian’s
Allegory of Prudence: a Postscript, in Erwin Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual
Arts, Garden City, NY, 1955, p. 168.
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