Raphael, Giorgione, and the Flight into Egypt

In the Spring of 2010 I presented my interpretation of Giorgione's "Tempest" as "The Rest of the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt" to a small panel at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America held that year in Venice on the 500 hundredth anniversary of Giorgione's death.

A few months later I discovered that a fledgling art history blog named "Three Pipe Problem" had posted a discussion of another interpretation of the famous painting. My comment on the site initiated a whole series of comments by the mysterious "H" and some others. Our lively back and forth led to private communication and I discovered that "H" was Hasan Niyazi, a passionate admirer of the art of the Renaissance.

Hasan was especially enamoured of Raphael. His Giorgione post originally appeared on his site on July 28, 2010 and in one of his responses to me he wrote,

I indeed admire Raphael but primarily because he was possessed of a precocious talent and applied himself voraciously and passionately to his work. He also seemed genuinely fond of antiquity, evidenced by his adventures in the Domus Aureus, and depicting himself as Apelles in Causarum Cognito.

 My favorite image of his is actually the tiny painting he did of the Three Graces (Charities), modeled on the Roman statue you can now see in Siena.

His Madonnas are pretty, but I feel no spiritual stirring when I look at them. Margarita Luti herself is more fascinating to me than who she was posing as for Raphael.

At the time I knew little about Raphael but in the course of my work on the "Tempest" I did discover that he had an interest in depicting episodes on the flight into Egypt. In the next three years Hasan and I engaged in some cross pollination. His knowledge of Raphael was of great value to me, and I like to think that my work on Giorgione and "sacred subjects" was of great value to him. He particularly liked the post I reproduce below on "Raphael, Giorgione and the Flight into Egypt."

Raphael: The Holy Family under a Palm Tree*

In the first decade of the 16th century the work of Raphael indicates an interest on the part of him and his patrons in episodes on the Flight into Egypt. During his Florentine period (1504-1508) Raphael did at least two versions of the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt."

One is a tondo, the “Holy Family under a Palm Tree,” dated c. 1506/7 and currently on loan since 1945 to Scotland’s National Gallery. This painting reflects the naturalism that Italian artists liked to bring to the subject, but also an increased importance for St. Joseph.The prominent palm tree in the background is the only reference that Raphael gives to the popular apocryphal legends surrounding the flight. According to the legend the palm or date tree bent down at the command of the Child so that Joseph could pick its fruit and feed his wife.

In the foreground Joseph is not depicted as a little old man off to the side in search of food. He has been given a prominent position front and center. He holds his simple pilgrim’s staff but is dressed in royal purple and gold. He is no longer a doddering old man and seems capable of protecting the Madonna and Child. Surely, his prominence reflects the growing importance of Joseph in the first decade of the century for Raphael’s patron as well as for most believers.

Raphael: The Holy Family with the Young St. Joseph
Hermitage

Another Raphael “Rest” is the “Holy Family with the Young St. Joseph” in the Hermitage and dated around 1506. The three figures are in an enclosure that looks out on a landscape. Again Joseph is not depicted as a decrepit old man but as a beardless middle-ager.

These two versions of the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” are only a hint of the interest of Raphael and his patrons in the sojourn of the Holy Family in Egypt. Many of the great Madonnas that Raphael painted during his Florentine period are depictions of the meeting of the Holy Family with the young John the Baptist on their return from Egypt.

In Legends of the Madonna Mrs. Anna Jameson gave the background for this legendary meeting.**

Thus, it is related that among the children whom Herod was bent on destroying, was St. John the Baptist; but his mother Elizabeth fled with him to a desert place, and being pursued by the murderers, “the rock opened by a miracle, and closed upon Elizabeth and her child;” which means, as we may presume, that they took refuge in a cavern, and were concealed within it until the danger was over. (356)

Mrs. Jameson added that this meeting has led to some confusion in the minds of artists as well as viewers.

It is nowhere recorded, either in Scripture or in the legendary stories, that Mary and Joseph, in their flight were accompanied by Elizabeth and the little St. John; therefore, where either of these are introduced, the subject is not properly a Riposo, whatever the intention of the painter may have been…366.

Many of Raphael’s most famous Madonnas are versions of this meeting despite their popular appellations.

Painted in 1505 the “Terranuova Madonna” (Berlin, Staatliche Museum, Gemaldegalerie) shows the Infant Christ perusing the scroll presented by the Baptist. The writing clearly refers to the Lamb of God. Inexplicably, another infant looks on. In the left background is a city that represents Judea, and in the right background are the rocks that formed the hiding place of the Baptist.

In 1506 the famous “Belvedere Madonna” (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) shows the Christ Child accepting the sacrificial cross from the kneeling Baptist. Again they are in a landscape with a city in the background.

In the “La Belle Jardiniere” of 1507 (Paris, Louvre) the Christ Child looks up at his mother as John announces the mission. In a study Raphael has Christ looking directly at John.

Dated about 1507 the “Canigiani Holy Family” (Munich, Alte Pinakothek) is a much more elaborate version of the “Encounter with the Baptist.” With obvious reference to depictions of this scene by Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael adds Elizabeth and a prominent Joseph with his staff and golden robe.

Also in 1507 “The Holy Family with a Lamb” (Madrid, Prado) substitutes a lamb for the Baptist. Again in gold Joseph leans on his staff and observes the child riding the lamb.

Finally, around the end of the Florentine period Raphael painted the “Esterhazy Madonna” (Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts). The Infant Christ points to the scroll.

What explains the popularity of the “Encounter with the Baptist on the Return from Egypt” in the first decade of the 16th century? It was common to transpose the events of Christ’s maturity to his infancy. The meeting with John the Baptist at the river Jordan is reflected in this earlier meeting on the return from Egypt. John's words, "Behold the Lamb of God," marked the beginning of the salvific mission of Jesus.

Raphael’s interest in these desert scenes reflected the devotion of wealthy patrons as well as humble worshippers. Who can doubt that Giorgione and his patrons did not share the same interest? In the Tempest Giorgione went far beyond the standard image of the “Rest on the Flight” but all the iconographical elements are there.

Vasari described Giorgione as a painter of Madonnas and portraits. The same description could apply to Raphael in the first decade of the 16th century. At the height of what later would be called the High Renaissance both young masters were responding to the great demand for sacred subjects like the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt."

###

Note: Shortly before his tragic, early death Hasan Niyazi had done a post on Raphael's Madonna of the Cardellino (Goldfinch). In one of his last messages to me he thanked me for a comment on the post and indicated that his Raphael favorite had changed since 2010.

Thank you for the kind comment. You may be aware that the Madonna del Cardellino is my favorite Raphael.

*The source for the attributions and dating of the Raphael paintings in this post is Jean-Pierre Cuzin, "Raphael, His Life and Works," 1985.

**Mrs. Anna Jameson:" Legends of the Madonna," Boston, 1885.

Giorgione and the Young Titian

Titian: "The Flight into Egypt." (probably 1507-8), Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum.



In his 2001 study, “Titian to 1518, the Assumption of Genius,” Paul Joannides provided an exhaustive analysis of Titian’s early career that also happened to shed a great deal of light on Giorgione. Joannides included an introductory chapter that covered practically all we know about the life and work of Giorgione. More importantly, his discussion of Titian provided insights that applied to both painters.*

Since we know so little about Giorgione, it is useful to approach him through his contemporaries. What if we were to conduct a little experiment? Suppose that Titian, for example, had died in 1510, at the same time as Giorgione. What would we say about him? What would we say about his work up to that time?

In 1510 Giorgione was about 33 while Titian would only have been about 21. If Titian had been taken by the same plague that claimed Giorgione’s life, today he would be regarded as a second-rate or maybe even a third-rate painter of sacred subjects. According to Joannides,

“Sebastiano [del Piombo] seems to have been further advanced in his career than Titian before mid-1511, and his work more controlled and mature.” (p. 129)

Here is a list of Titian’s early work compiled from Joannides who stressed that attributions are difficult and that dates are usually approximate.

Titian, Flight into Egypt ( probably 1507-8, retouched c. 1510) Oil on canvas 206x336 cm. St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum (p. 36, figure 25).

Titian, Visitation (probably 1507-8), Oil on canvas, 212x150 cm. Venice, Museo Correr. (p. 41, figure 29).

Titian, re-worked by Francesco Vicellio, Adoration of the Shepherds (probably 1507 and 1524). Oil on canvas, 221x174 cm. Houston. (p.44, figure 30).
.
Antonio Zanetti after Titian, Judith/Justice (1760). Rome, Biblioteca Herziana. (p. 50, figure 33). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Antonio Zanetti after Titian, Standing Compagno della Calza (1760). Rome. Biblioteca Herziana. (p. 62, figure 46). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Francesco Molo after Titian, Standing Nude Woman (C. 1650). (p. 64, figure 48). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Page 66. Figure 51. Antonio Zanetti after Titian, Two Nude Women (1760). Rome. Biblioteca Herziana. (p.66, figure 51). [From the Fondaco dei Tedeschi]

Titian, Virgin and St. Joseph, Adoring the Child (probably 1507–8). Oil on panel, 19.1x16.2 cm. North Carolina Museum of Art. (p. 74, figure 55).

?Titian, St. Jerome (probably 1508). Oil on panel, 45.2x78.4 cm. Formerly Vienna, private collection; present whereabouts unknown. (p.74, figure 58).

Titian, Story of Myrrah and Cinyras and the Birth of Adonis (probably 1509). Oil on panel, 35x106 CM. Padua, Museo Civico. (p.78, figure 62). [Actually figure 63]

Titian, Story of Erischthon (probably 1509), Oil on panel, 35x106 cm. Padua, Museo Civico. (p. 78, figure 63). [Actually figure 62]

Titian, Unidentified Subject (probably 1509). Oil on panel, 46x44 cm. Private Collection, on loan to Cambridge, Massachusetts, Fogg Museum of Art. (p. 80, figure 66). [Three figures in a landscape]

Titian, Risen Christ (probably 1509) Oil on panel, 131x 81.5 cm. (p. 84, figure 70). [private collection]

Titian, Circumcision (probably 1509), 37.5x79.3 cm, Yale. (p. 87, figure 77).

Titian, Christ and the Adulteress (probably 1510). Oil on canvas, 139.2 x 181.7 cm (cut down), Glasgow. (p.88, figure 78).

Titian, Bust of a Young Woman (the 'Courtesan') (probably 1510). Oil on canvas transferred from panel, 31.7x 24.1 cm. Pasadena. (p. 95, figure 83).

Titian, Virgin and Child ('The Lochis Madonna') (probably 1510). Oil on panel, 38x 47 cm. Bergamo. (p. 97, figure 85).

Altogether Joannides attributed 17 different works from 1507 through 1510 and practically all were sacred subjects.

The first one on the list is very interesting because it indicates that Titian’s first painting was a version of the “Flight into Egypt” with the Madonna and Child being followed by Joseph through a wooded landscape. Even more interesting is the fact that x-rays in 2000 revealed that this oil had been painted over a scene of the Madonna and Child with St. Joseph that Joannides at one point called a “Thanksgiving” but then later called, “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt.”

Not only does this discovery show that the subject of the “Rest” was popular, but it also provides a note of caution for those who make much of pentimenti or changes of mind. Joannides wrote,

“it demonstrates that the artist's habit of superimposing one composition upon another, amply documented from his later work, is a constant from the very beginning of his career....” (p. 39)

If the young Titian painted over an old canvas in the first decade of the 16th century, shouldn’t we suspect that Giorgione might have done the same thing in the Tempest?

Following the “Flight” we have a “Visitation” and an “Adoration of the Shepherds” that Joannides believed was started by Titian in 1507 but only completed by his brother in 1524. Then we get to a series of later drawings and etchings done from Titian’s fresco work on the famed Fondaco dei Tedeschi.

The story of the Fondaco frescoes, on which both Giorgione and Titian worked, is well known. Vasari saw the frescoes before they were ruined but even then he confessed that he could not decipher their subject. Even today scholars scratch their heads especially since the Venetian weather eventually ruined the frescoes. Today, we have a couple of fragments, and the 17th and 18th century etchings in Joannides list. The prominent place of a Judith with the head of Holofernes certainly indicates a sacred subject.

Venetian records show that Giorgione was commissioned to do the work on the Fondaco, and no mention is made of Titian. Despite Vasari’s story about the popularity of Titian’s contribution, my guess is that Giorgione created the whole iconographic scheme and even did the drawings, and that he employed the much younger Titian as a painting sub-contractor. Joannides argued that even in 1511 when Titian did frescoes in Padua, he lacked basic drawing skills.

Sacred subjects dominate the remainder of the list. In addition to the obvious ones, Joannides speculated that the so-called Bust of a Young Woman (the 'Courtesan') might be Mary Magdalen.




“Perhaps more likely is that she is a Magdalene in a Mary and Martha, the subject represented in Milan in the work of Bernadino Luini and his circle and one that would certainly have appealed to Titian, allowing him to contrast female types. But without further evidence no suggestion can be more than speculative.” (p. 96)









Finally, Joannides expressed puzzlement about a painting that he could only call an “Unidentified Subject.”




“This little–seen painting, which represents a Standing Soldier and a Seated Woman with a Child,…has been given to various hands, but the attribution to Titian, first proposed and then discarded by Berenson was cogently restated by Hilliard Goldfarb after the panel had been cleaned and restored. It is wholly convincing…. The complex building at the left rear is very similar in type to that which dominates the Visitation and the successive planes of the landscape and the juxtaposition resemble those of the Gypsy Madonna." (p. 78)

Joannides pointed out the similarity of this painting, as well as another one of a soldier standing guard over a woman and children in the Philadelphia Museum, to Giorgione’s famous “Tempest,” and noted that it was also mysterious.

“It too could well be arboreal in its concerns--the woman and child sit under a substantial tree--but until the subject--which cannot be found in the Metamorphoses--has been identified, this cannot be taken as certain.” (p. 79)

Years ago Edgar Wind also noted the resemblance to the “Tempest” but gave this painting to a follower of Giorgione and called it “Fortezza and Carita.” Rather than a follower Joannides claimed that Titian’s painting; as well as the one in Philadelphia; might all share a common ancestor with the “Tempest.”

“in fact since the Philadelphia and the ex-Northampton paintings are inseparable in subject matter, one might wonder whether their relation to the Tempest should be reformulated. Might it not be the case that Giorgione, aware of the narrative illustrated in those two paintings, merely adapted it to his own purposes from some visual model common to both?” (p.82)**(See below for a longer excerpt)

I have argued that the “Tempest” is a depiction of “The Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” Given their similarity, Titian’s “Unidentified Subject” could also be a version of the “Rest.” We have a man, woman, and child in a landscape. We only have to try to discover why Joseph is portrayed as a young, virile, armed soldier.

"Allegory" Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Despite the compositional similarity no one has ever claimed that the Titian “Rest” is in the same league as the “Tempest.” Even the more impressive Philadelphia version, labeled “Allegory” and cautiously attributed to Palma Vecchio, is hidden away in storage. If Titian had died in 1510 no one would have ever compared him to Giorgione. Even though Joannides found traces of Titian’s later genius in these early works, they are only of interest today because of what we know of the later Titian.

According to Joannides it was only after Giorgione’s death that Titian began to appreciate and study the craftsmanship of Giovanni Bellini and Central Italian painters like Raphael. Only then would Titian work on the Gypsy Madonna and the Concert Champetre. Indeed, Joannides dated the Concert Champetre to 1511 but agreed with those who claimed that Titian only finished it in 1530.

Joannides believed that the brief period during which Giorgione and Titian both worked in Venice constituted a special moment in time.

“It is evident that around 1500 a fashion arose in Venice for the visual representation of novel literary and mythological subject matter. This fashion was relatively short-lived and, since many of the subjects treated at this time were not taken up by later artists, it has left behind a number of paintings that are inherently difficult to identify. (p. 81)

Neverheless, the period also saw novel attempts to represent traditional sacred subjects. During this time Giorgione was in his prime and led the way in bringing sacred subjects to a new level; something that Titian would eventually build on to become the greatest painter of the 16th century.

*Paul Joannides, Titian to 1518, the Assumption of Genius, Yale, 2001.

**"this consideration might return us for a moment to the ex-Northampton panel. It is immediately obvious that, although their styles differ, there is a close compositional relation between it and Giorgione's Tempest. In the former the male figure clad in a breastplate and carrying a halberd, is clearly a soldier. The corresponding male figure in the Tempest carries no weapon and wears no armor, although he too is described as a soldier by Michiel. But perhaps Michiel, aware of works such as the ex-Northampton panel or another, larger, painting in Philadelphia which is very similar in arrangement, simply jumped to the conclusion that the man in the Tempest was also a soldier. in fact since the Philadelphia and the ex-Northampton paintings are inseparable in subject matter, one might wonder whether their relation to the Tempest should be reformulated. Might it not be the case that Giorgione, aware of the narrative illustrated in those two paintings, merely adapted it to his own purposes from some visual model common to both?… But it might be, in contrast, that the Tempest represents an eccentric utilization of a compositional formula devised for some quite unrelated subject." (p. 82)

The Discovery of Paris

Giorgione: "The Discovery of Paris," or "The Encounter with the Robbers on the Flight into Egypt”

David Teniers: Copy of a Lost Giorgione

The great objection to interpreting Giorgione's "Tempest" as "the Rest on the Flight into Egypt" is, of course, the nude Madonna. As one scholar said, it is "unimaginable." Others have insisted that precedents must be found for such a radical interpretation. It was only last year that I found a precedent in a copy of a "lost" Giorgione. This new evidence was incorporated into the presentation given at the Annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in April, 2010. It was posted on the Blog section of my website on July 19, 2010. I post it below with additional information that claims that Isabella d'Este was trying to acquire the "Tempest" in 1510.


A “lost” Giorgione painting which has been mis-identified for almost 500 years can shed new light on the work and career of the most mysterious and perhaps the greatest of all Venetian Renaissance painters.

In 1525, fifteen years after the death of Giorgione, Marcantonio Michiel noticed a painting in the home of Venetian patrician, Taddeo Contarini, and described it as a “picture on canvas, representing the birth of Paris, in a landscape, with two shepherds standing.…” Michiel noted that it was one of Giorgione’s “early works.”

This painting has been lost, but copies exist from the 17th century. The editor of the 1903 translation of Michiel’s notes cited a description in an “old manuscript catalog of the time.”

A landscape on canvas, in oil, where there are on one side, a half nude woman and an old man, seated, with a flute.

One of the copies, made by David Teniers around 1655, is currently in a private collection but was discussed in two recent catalogues. The authors of both catalogues agree that it is a copy of an early Giorgione and also accept, although with some puzzlement, Michiel’s identification of the painting as “the Birth of Paris.” However, details in this early Giorgione indicate that it has quite a different subject than the one imagined by Michiel.

The subject of this “lost” Giorgione comes from a legendary episode on the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt. Here is the version from the apocryphal “Arabic Gospel of the Infancy.”

Joseph and the lady Mary departed and came to a desert place, and when they heard that it was infested with raids by robbers, they decided to pass through this region by night. But behold, on the way they saw two robbers lying on the road, and with them a crowd of robbers who belonged to them, likewise sleeping. Now these two robbers, into whose hands they had fallen, were Titus and Dumachus. And Titus said to Dumachus: ‘I ask you to let these (people) go free, and in such a way that our companions do not observe them.’ But Dumachus refused and Titus said again: ‘Take from me forty drachmae and have them as a pledge.’ At the same time he reached him the girdle which he wore round him, that he might hold his tongue and not speak.

In "Legends of the Madonna" Anna Jameson called the encounter with the robbers an “ancient tradition,” and added another detail. After the acceptance of his offer, “the merciful robber led the Holy Travellers to his stronghold on the rock, and gave them lodging for the night.”

The landscape in the background of the painting is commonplace in depictions of the Flight into Egypt. The stream is often seen in versions of the “Rest.” It was used by the Madonna to either bathe, or to wash the swaddling clothes of her Son.

Giorgione: Judith

Bathing might explain Mary’s exposed leg and arms but the disarray of her clothing could also be Giorgione’s way of representing her obvious danger from the robbers. In a painting now in the Hermitage, Giorgione exposed the thigh of Judith, the famous Jewish heroine whose virtue was also threatened. In any case Mary sits with her back to Joseph with her eyes intent on her Son, her real protector. Joseph is portrayed as an elderly graybeard as in Giorgione’s well-known Nativities. The infant Christ lies on a white cloth and returns his mother’s imploring look. The white cloth recalls the "corporale," used to cover the altar on which the Eucharist is placed.

The two men on the right side are not shepherds but robbers. A Giorgione shepherd would be kneeling or bending over the Child in adoration. The one with the red jacket has just convinced the other to leave the Holy Family in peace. He has taken off his “girdle” leaving himself somewhat exposed and given it to the other who is in the process of fixing it around his waist. The band of robbers can be seen lounging in the middle ground. Joseph’s flute recalls the well-know verse from Juvenal: “A wanderer who has nothing can sing in a robber’s face.”

In “The Encounter with the Robbers in the Desert” Giorgione did not attempt to hide the subject of that early work. If no one has recognized its subject from Michiel’s time to ours, it is because the very popular apocryphal legends have largely been forgotten. Early in his career Giorgione was working not on a pagan subject derived from the legend of Paris but on a depiction of an apocryphal legend based on the Flight into Egypt. Moreover, he showed an inclination, even at this early stage in his brief career, to depict the Madonna in a very unusual way.


Marcantonio Michiel may not have been the first to describe this painting. In 1510, the year of Giorgione’s death, Isabella D’Este, the Marchioness of Mantua and a noted collector, was trying to acquire a work by Giorgione for her camerino. When she was informed by Taddeo Albano, her agent in Venice, that Giorgione had just died, she urged him to try to acquire a “Notte” from his estate:

we hear that among the possessions left by Zorzo da Castelfranco, the painter, there is a picture of a Notte, very beautiful and original. If this is the case, we wish to have it, and beg your Lorenzo da Pavia or any other person of taste and judgment to go and see if it is a really excellent thing. If it is, I hope you will endeavor to secure this picture for me, with the help of our dearest "compare" the Magnifico Carlo Valerio, or of any one else you may think fit. Find out the price and let us have the exact sum; but if it is really a fine thing, and you think well to clench the bargain for fear others should carry it off, do what you think best…

Albano replied,

I have spoken in your interests to some of my friends who were very intimate with him, and they assure me that there is no such picture among his possessions. It is true that the said Zorzo painted a Notte for M. Taddeo Contarini, which, according to the information which I have, is not as perfect as you would desire. Another picture of the Notte was painted by Zorzo for a certain Vittore Beccaro, which, from what I hear, is finer in design and better finished than that of Contarini. But Beccaro is not at present in Venice, and from what I hear neither picture is for sale, because the owners have had them painted for their own pleasure, so that I regret I am unable to satisfy Your Excellency’s wish.

According to Michiel’s notes the only painting in the home of Taddeo Contarini that could be a “notte” would be the “discovery of Paris,” or as we have called it, “The Encounter with the Robbers on the Flight into Egypt.” Scholars have never agreed about what Isabella D’Este could have meant by “Notte.” Some think she was referring to a Nativity but Isabella knew a Nativity when she saw one, or when she requested one from Giovanni Bellini. No, the “Encounter with the Robbers,” indicates that a “Notte” was an evening scene where the sun was setting over a landscape at the end of day.

What about the other “notte”? It is certainly possible that the one done for Vittore Beccaro, the one finer in design and better finished; the one described by Isabella as “very beautiful and original” could have been the Tempesta. In the “Encounter with the Robbers” Giorgione was “stretching the envelope” with a presentation of a disheveled and partially nude Madonna. Later he would go even further in the “Tempesta.” But that is another story.


Francis P. DeStefano
Fairfield, CT