thank you! it occurs to me now that I left something out of the opening, I quoted from ‘Naples ‘44’ by Norman Lewis, but forgot to recommend it, wonderful book
Great post! The two Marsyas paintings seem so close, so much in conversation, the Luca Giordano must have been in response to the Ribera--which must have been in Naples, right?
(The Marsyas of Ribera looks like someone by Greco, except of course the head.)
I left this out of the post because I was afraid it would take another thousand words, but excellent solution, I can put it here, two of the three Riberas I mention were in the same collection, both Marsyas and Silenus belonged to a Flemish merchant who lived in Naples, Gaspar Roomer. There's a memorable section on Roomer in Francis Haskell's 'Patrons and Painters':
"Like many a Fleming devoted to the pleasures of life Roomer had a taste for the grotesque, the dark and the cruel which the painters of Naples were well able to satisfy. Over the years he collected a grim series of works by Ribera: The Drunken Silenus—a gross, dirty, fat-paunched, androgynous travesty of the god of wine lying obscenely across the picture attended by his goat-like fauns and a braying donkey, the very embodiment of harsh stupidity; there was too The Flaying of Marsyas, who lies with his torn, naked limbs outstretched under Apollo's knee like some parody of the crucified body of St. Peter while the satyrs gaze in anguish at his torments; and Sandrart recalled seeing a Cato 'who lies in his own welling blood after committing suicide and tears his intestines into pieces with his hands'." (p. 205 in the Icon edition)
Giordano appears two pages later
"Roomer's relations with Luca Giordano, who was some forty years younger than himself, began in the middle 1650s on an uneasy note. The painter resented 'being treated as a beginner', and apparently forged a number of old masters both to prove his virtuosity and to tease the ageing collector. He was forgiven and thereafter Roomer became his staunch supporter in the many envious feuds which the prodigiously successful artist inspired. Unfortunately it is impossible to tell what pictures Giordano painted for him. Were they in the new, light, rich, Venetian manner that the artist was already practicing long before Roomer's death in 1674, or did they carry on for him the tradition of violence which he had so fostered in the early years of his collecting." (p. 207)
This is great.
thank you! it occurs to me now that I left something out of the opening, I quoted from ‘Naples ‘44’ by Norman Lewis, but forgot to recommend it, wonderful book
Great post! The two Marsyas paintings seem so close, so much in conversation, the Luca Giordano must have been in response to the Ribera--which must have been in Naples, right?
(The Marsyas of Ribera looks like someone by Greco, except of course the head.)
I left this out of the post because I was afraid it would take another thousand words, but excellent solution, I can put it here, two of the three Riberas I mention were in the same collection, both Marsyas and Silenus belonged to a Flemish merchant who lived in Naples, Gaspar Roomer. There's a memorable section on Roomer in Francis Haskell's 'Patrons and Painters':
"Like many a Fleming devoted to the pleasures of life Roomer had a taste for the grotesque, the dark and the cruel which the painters of Naples were well able to satisfy. Over the years he collected a grim series of works by Ribera: The Drunken Silenus—a gross, dirty, fat-paunched, androgynous travesty of the god of wine lying obscenely across the picture attended by his goat-like fauns and a braying donkey, the very embodiment of harsh stupidity; there was too The Flaying of Marsyas, who lies with his torn, naked limbs outstretched under Apollo's knee like some parody of the crucified body of St. Peter while the satyrs gaze in anguish at his torments; and Sandrart recalled seeing a Cato 'who lies in his own welling blood after committing suicide and tears his intestines into pieces with his hands'." (p. 205 in the Icon edition)
Giordano appears two pages later
"Roomer's relations with Luca Giordano, who was some forty years younger than himself, began in the middle 1650s on an uneasy note. The painter resented 'being treated as a beginner', and apparently forged a number of old masters both to prove his virtuosity and to tease the ageing collector. He was forgiven and thereafter Roomer became his staunch supporter in the many envious feuds which the prodigiously successful artist inspired. Unfortunately it is impossible to tell what pictures Giordano painted for him. Were they in the new, light, rich, Venetian manner that the artist was already practicing long before Roomer's death in 1674, or did they carry on for him the tradition of violence which he had so fostered in the early years of his collecting." (p. 207)
Roomer also owned one of the feast paintings by Preti, Wedding at Cana (National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/mattia-preti-the-marriage-at-cana), as well as Rubens's Feast of Herod (National Gallery, Scotland https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/5382)
Thanks for this detailed visit and for pointing me in the direction of Thomas's work.
my pleasure! I am grateful he responded to my request, and allowed me to quote his email