RIHA Journal

0295 Notes on the Early Provenance of Paolo Veronese’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Prison

Orsolya Bubryák — 2023-02-10

This article provides information about the early provenance of the Paolo Veronese painting entitled Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Prison in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The painting can most likely be traced back to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Augsburg. Descriptions that match the Veronese painting are found in the inventories of two very wealthy Augsburg merchants: one is in the post mortem inventory of Octavian Secundus Fugger (ca. 1600/1601), the other in a list of works of art from the collection of Hans Steininger (ca. 1641/42). Octavian Secundus Fugger only occasionally bought paintings from Venice, never seeking to amass a systematic collection of art. The deeply religious Catholic merchant, who was a strong supporter of the Jesuits, hung his picture of Saint Catherine, along with other religious paintings, in the antechapel of his house, and it remained at this location until the early 17th century. The painting’s later owner, however, the Lutheran textile merchant Hans Steininger, was a highly educated art collector who created one of the most illustrious collections in Augsburg. In his Kunstkammer, Veronese’s painting was displayed in the company of mythological female figures, nymphs, and Venus, accompanied by a whole series of paintings by renowned artists such as Hans von Aachen, Christoph Amberger, Paris Bordone, Hans Burgkmair, Joseph Heintz and Titian. Steininger’s collection was dispersed after his death, but many of the paintings he owned can still be identified. Veronese’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria may be one of them.

0296 Paolo Uccello in French Surrealism: Doubling Antonin Artaud

Tessel M. Bauduin — 2023-03-09

In the 1920s and '30s the fourteenth-century Italian artist Paolo Uccello was appropriated as a precursor of Surrealism in the French surrealist discourse. Pivotal were two texts, a mini-play and an essay, that the playwright Antonin Artaud, then in his surrealist phase, dedicated to Uccello between 1924 and 1926. This article analyses both texts and shows the construction, by Artaud, of Uccello as his potential double, and especially as someone dedicated to mind over matter, a key facet of Uccello’s reception as a fellow traveler of Surrealism. It identifies an artwork ascribed to Uccello, discussed by Artaud and thought imaginary, as a panel currently in the Louvre. Finally, it shows that an imagined biography of the artist by the symbolist writer Marcel Schwob forms the key hypotext for Artaud and other surrealists, with strong echoes of Vasari’s vita of Uccello, which was in turn Schwob’s hypotext.

0279 Gold on Blue in Philadelphia

Sílvia Ferreira — 2022-12-08

In 1957, American art historian Robert C. Smith was asked by Julius Zieget, Secretary and Treasurer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), to travel to Lisbon to purchase gilded woodcarved objects, sculptures and azulejos (hand painted tiles) to create a 'Portuguese chapel' within the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, established in the deconsecrated Church of the Evangelists in Philadelphia. This was the first time that Portuguese art pieces would leave Portugal with the specific aim of musealizing a chapel in a public space. Smith’s valuable contacts in Lisbon, namely with João Couto, then director of the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (MNAA), led him to the antique dealers and private collectors that would eventually supply the objects he sought.

This essay explores and reflects upon the cultural and historical context surrounding the project, and looks into the commissioning, acquisition and installation of the chapel, a process that lasted from 1957 to 1960 (the chapel was inaugurated in 1961 by Luís Esteves Fernandes, then Portuguese ambassador to the US). Working from unpublished documents, namely Smith’s correspondence, the article also traces the fortune of the pieces purchased by Smith from the moment they were placed in the Fleisher Foundation chapel to the present.

0278 Geld oder Liebe? Theodoor van Thuldens Rückkehr nach Antwerpen im Jahr 1634

Sabrina Lind — 2022-12-07

The painter and etcher Theodoor van Thulden (1606–1669) was documented as a master in Antwerp from 1626, though not long thereafter, at the beginning of the 1630s, he would move to France. The aim of this article is to reconstruct why he chose to return to Antwerp in 1634 by analyzing three possible factors in his relocation: family obligations, a position as churchwarden at the church of St. Jacob, and the Joyous Entry of the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Spain into Antwerp on 17 April 1635. The investigation includes a reconsideration of the sources that have generally been used to reconstruct his biography, as well as a study of previously unknown archival material. From all these sources it can be deduced that van Thulden was probably in direct contact with Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) at the beginning of his career, and that it was Rubens who encouraged him to return to Antwerp.

0280 The Hidden Beginnings of a Breakthrough: Lina Bo Bardi’s First Steps in Brazil

Daniele Pisani — 2022-12-21

Italian-born architect Lina Bo Bardi always claimed that she had moved to Brazil in the aftermath of World War II because the freedom ideals of the Italian Resistance had been betrayed. Recent studies argue she was merely accompanying her husband, Pietro Maria Bardi, who was organizing art exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro. However, as documented by the correspondence published here for the first time, Bo Bardi did not embark on the journey to the New World because of the failures of the Italian Resistance or simply as a companion to her husband: she had been charged with the task of ensuring Brazil’s participation in the eighth edition of the Triennale di Milano (1947). On the basis of the correspondence documenting this assignment, this essay fills a historiographic gap and, more importantly, aims to radically revise the narrative around the initial phase of Bo Bardi’s stay in Brazil, the country she increasingly felt as her own and where she eventually spent her entire life.

0277 Eine Geschichte von Hasen: Zu Sigmar Polkes Rezeption des Feldhasen von Albrecht Dürer

Ksenija Tschetschik-Hammerl — 2022-10-26

The article explores the role of Albrecht Dürer’s famous watercolour The Hare (1502) in the work of Sigmar Polke (1941–2010) who is considered one of the most prominent artists active in Rhineland in the post-war period. In his work, Polke repeatedly used visual materials from everyday life in West Germany, which he inserted as objets trouvés or as references and paraphrases into his paintings and other images. In art-historical and art-critical literature, Polke’s quotations of The Hare have been interpreted primarily in terms of the artist’s supposedly critical attitude either towards the mimetic character of Dürer’s study or towards the misuse of the Old Master’s imagery in consumer society. This article argues that the reflective potential of the presence of Dürer’s Hare in Polke’s work goes far beyond mere reference to the Renaissance artist and his study of nature. It will be shown that Polke’s reference to the Hare also comments on working methods of colleagues such as Joseph Beuys, Konrad Lueg and Dieter Roth. By paraphrasing Dürer’s Hare, Polke also reflects on the relationship between art and everyday life, blurring and questioning the established hierarchies.

0275 Niepublikowany projekt kościoła luterańskiego autorstwa Valentina von Saebischa

Marek Świdrak — 2022-07-15

Wśród niepublikowanej spuścizny po Valentinie von Saebischu (1577–1657), bodaj najwybitniejszym architekcie czynnym na Śląsku w 1. połowie XVII wieku, znajduje się zespół czterech rysunków projektowych przedstawiających luterański kościół. Unikatowy wśród budownictwa ryglowego pod względem bogactwa architektonicznego, projekt ten jest ważnym, a dotychczas nieuwzględnianym przez badaczy świadectwem stanu architektury sakralnej przed pożogą wywołaną przez Wojnę Trzydziestoletnią. Dzieło Saebischa jest doskonałym świadectwem recepcji praskiej architektury powstającej w czasasch cesarza Rudolfa II (1552–1612), a także obowiązujących tam standardów warsztatowych projektantów architektonicznych.

0274 The Man of Sorrows by Hans von Aachen in Břevnov Monastery in Prague

Štěpán Vácha — 2022-07-15

This study presents a hitherto unpublished painting of The Man of Sorrows, located in Břevnov monastery in Prague, by the Rudolfine court painter Hans von Aachen. The aim is to investigate not only the provenance of the work and the presumable commissioner, Abbot Wolfgang Selender of Prošovice, but also the painting’s place in Von Aachen’s œuvre, possible sources of inspiration for its iconography as well as formal design in Italy and Prague. Among other findings, a technological survey conducted during its restoration revealed a man’s face in the lower layers of paint, possibly a portrayal of the Emperor Rudolf II.

0276 An Unpublished Lutheran Church Design by Valentin von Saebisch

Marek Świdrak — 2022-07-15

The unpublished legacy of Valentin von Saebisch (1577–1657), arguably Silesia’s most eminent architect in the former half of the seventeenth century, includes a set of four drawings representing a Lutheran church design. This post-and-beam design stands out from other examples of this kind with its richness and variety. This important testimony to church architecture, perished in the ravages of the Thirty Years’ War, has yet to be fully investigated by researchers. The design by Saebisch is a perfect testimony to the reception of Prague architecture created under the reign of Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612) and the technical standards used by the architects of that time.

0281 From Unwanted Heritage towards Difficult Heritage

Margaret Tali — 2023-03-27

This article discusses Arno Breker’s portrait busts (1986) of the German collectors Peter and Irene Ludwig and the debates that surrounded this work during its displays in Germany and Hungary. Focusing on the contingent ways in which difficult pasts are attached to artistic heritage, it articulates how cross-border travels complicate this attachment. The work of Hitler’s once-leading artist Breker serves as a case study for analyzing how meanings are on the one hand produced and on the other hand suppressed and willfully ignored in the context of exhibition settings. The analysis of these portrait busts’ curatorial contextualisation from the 1980s to the 2020s reveals a shift in curators‘ attitudes towards Breker’s works: from an 'unwanted heritage' that is intentionally neglected to a 'difficult heritage' and the articulation of its difficulties and dissonances. Analysing the biography of these works makes it possible to show the important roles that curatorial problematising has carried in the framing of these works, both in Germany and Hungary.

0273 Anastas Jovanović: Photographer of the New Slovak Political Representation

Petra Trnková — 2022-04-20

This essay looks into the very beginnings of paper photography in the Austrian Empire. It focuses on two salted paper portraits of two most iconic figures of the Slovak National Revival in the mid-19th century, Ľudovít Štúr and Jozef M. Hurban. Created around 1849 by Anastas Jovanović, a Serbian photographer and lithographer based in Vienna, both portraits are the earliest paper photographs today preserved in Slovak collections. The article elucidates not only the salted paper prints’ authorship, origin, ownership and material characteristics, but also the notion of reproduction and circulation of images during the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849 and by the advent of photography on paper in Central Europe at the same time. Special attention is paid to social and cultural contacts between Slovaks and Serbs around 1848 as a key factor to the photographs’ production.

0272 "Iussu patris"? Prolegomena on Form and Function of Women Artists’ Signatures in the Early Modern Period

Samuel Vitali — 2022-09-06

This article aims to give for the first time an overview of the form and function of women artists’ signatures in early modern Europe, with a particular focus on Italy. Through an analysis of the frequency with which women artists signed their works as well as the iconic and textual form of the inscriptions, it establishes a number of peculiarities that distinguish female from male signing practice. It attempts then to explain these differences by the specific sociocultural conditions under which artistic activity by women was possible and accepted. The central thesis is that the frequency and particular textual form of women’s signatures were prompted by the special interest of patrons and collectors in works created by female artists. Rather than an expression of their authors’ self-assurance as artists in a field dominated by men, as earlier scholarship tended to assume, the characteristics of female signing practice were often an index of their limited autonomy.

0271 Francisco de Holanda's Drawings and Words: Fortification, Architecture and Urban Design

Margarida Tavares da Conceição — 2022-05-03

Artistically gifted courtier Francisco de Holanda (1517/1518–1584) left several manuscripts, containing both texts and drawings, in a quantity and of a consistency rarely seen in sixteenth-century Portugal. Holanda's contributions to architectural knowledge are well known among scholars, yet their relevance has not been fully acknowledged. Some obstacles need to be overcome: a one-sided disciplinary approach, a disproportionate focus on the influence of treatises, and the seductive pull of an eccentric personality. Beyond the debate on his contribution to artistic practice or even to the idea of classical antiquity, his achievements had a bearing on Portuguese culture in a wider and more complex sense than has previously been discussed. Educated in royal circles, at a time when imperial overseas ambitions depended strongly on military expertise, Holanda lent his skills as a painter to the task of espionage through his drawings of foreign fortifications, while making a significant contribution to the development of architectural language and thus to the emergence of the architect's profile. As such, a reassessment of the legacy of this artistically talented courtier is long overdue. Rereading his works and putting all the pieces together gives us a better insight into the bonds between art theory and architecture, fortification and urban design, from the position of a cultured non-specialist.

0270 Tras las huellas del maestro. Zacharie Astruc: admirador y coleccionista de Francisco de Goya

Guillermo Juberías Gracia — 2022-03-17

In the Footsteps of the Master. Zacharie Astruc: Admirer and Collector of Francisco de Goya

Zacharie Astruc (1833–1907) was an important artist and art critic of the second half of the 19th century. This article presents new data on a facet that has not been widely known until now: the one related to his early appreciation of the value of Francisco de Goya's work, especially after the trip he made to Spain in 1864. Thanks to the study of his notebooks and drawings as well as various manuscripts preserved in the Archive du Musée d'Orsay (Paris), it has been possible to find out what works of Goya he contemplated in Spain and what his perception of them was. In his sketches he came to set two scenes in the Quinta del Sordo before the Black paintings were transferred onto canvas. Finally, thanks to the consultation of an auction catalogue of his collection, the article presents unpublished data on the role of Zacharie Astruc as a collector of Goya's works.

0259 Reconsidering Anders Zorn’s Omnibus Paintings

Emma Jansson — 2022-01-21

This article reconsiders the relationship between Anders Zorn’s (1860–1920) Omnibus paintings. Two largescale versions exist for the Omnibus motif (Omnibus I and Omnibus II), both of which have historically been viewed as official works that were exhibited by Zorn during the years 1892–1893. Drawing upon recent technical analyses of the artist’s oil paintings, together with relevant archival sources, a discussion is put forward with the aim of reconfiguring the earlier Omnibus I (1891) version as an initial sketch (esquisse) to the later Omnibus II (1892).

0258 Wading into Battle: Frida Kahlo, Surrealism, and the Gradivian Myth

Joanna Piechura — 2022-02-04

The author investigates Frida Kahlo’s subversive response to the surrealist imaginary of the Woman-Child, brought to life in Wilhelm Jensen’s novella Gradiva (1901). The author retraces the Freudian roots of Gradiva’s popularity among the surrealists, and analyses Kahlo’s painting What the Water Gave Me (1938) as a critical re-enactment of the childish, naïve femininity represented in the works of male surrealists. The author argues that Kahlo’s use of Gradivian motifs and her changing attitude towards the poetics of surrealism are traceable not only within her visual works, but in her intimate drawings and writings as well, exemplified by a letter to Jacqueline Lamba and other excerpts from Kahlo’s diary. Underscoring the role Kahlo friendship with Lamba played in the Mexican’s career sheds new light on the ways she referenced surrealism in her art.

0257 A Half-Hearted Expressionist Extortion

María Frick — 2021-12-17

This article traces the genealogy of Expressionism in Uruguay as an artistic form that, within the framework of a figurative art trend of social and popular orientation, questioned the hegemonic guidelines regarding the cultural identity under construction in the first half of the twentieth century. Taking as an example the representation of the rural landscape and the gaucho, the article describes the incorporation of Expressionist principles and values to reveal both the persistence of the primitive in the project of the modern nation and the consequences of the incipient industrialization on the human experience.

0269 Altering the Titles of Artworks for New Functions. Two Plaster Groups by Josip Urbanija (1877–1943)

Karin Šmid — 2021-07-10

Slovenian sculptor Josip Urbanija (1877–1943) received his initial training in workshops in Ljubljana, Selce pri Škofji Loki and Klagenfurt, then he studied with Hans Bitterlich at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna shortly before the First World War. He spent the war years in Bosnia, where he completed two monuments. After the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, he settled permanently in Vienna. This is partly the reason why his life and work have hardly been researched and are almost unknown. The aim of the present study is to provide insight into the origin of two monumental sculptural groups initially named Quelle (Water Spring) and Tunnelbrecher (Tunnel Breaker). In addition, it also discusses later names of the two plaster artworks and examines what they reveal about the intended functions of the sculptures.

0268 The Millennial Monument in Budapest as a Bearer of Memory, National Identity and Self-Awareness

Gábor György Papp — 2021-07-10

In the 19th century, one of the most important national events in Hungary was the 1896 millennial celebration of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. A central act of the festivity’s symbolical episodes was the erection of the so-called Millennium Memorial (or Millennial Monument) at Heroes’ Square in Budapest. The monument consists of a colonnaded architectural framework that embraces a sculpture gallery featuring Hungarian leaders and rulers. My paper presents the history of the monument from concept to completion. Besides the artistic patterns of the architectural framework designed by Albert Schickedanz, special attention is given to the sculptures of the Hungarian sculptors who worked under the direction of the artist György Zala, as well as to the relations between the sculptors and the artistic scene of Vienna, and to the models they used. In addition to these primarily art historical aspects, my paper discusses the cultural context of the Memorial. It seeks answers to the questions of how the Memorial became a symbol of national identity already at the stage of planning and what ideas about the shaping of the national self-image defined the final form of the Memorial.

0267 Public Sculpture in Zagreb in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Irena Kraševac — 2021-07-10

The Zagreb Green Horseshoe, or Zelena potkova in Croatian, is an original urban evocation of the Ringstraße in Vienna that represents an effort to create a characteristic urban space during the era of Historicism. This distinctive 19th century urban project provided an appropriate setting for monuments and sculptural decoration. Squares, parks and main streets thus became a stage where contemporaries encountered monuments to personalities whose memory was to be preserved. The evocation of historical figures as a part of the collective memory is one of the fundamental ideas behind erecting monuments in any public place. Zagreb, as a national metropolis, favoured monuments dedicated to persons who recalled the nation’s glorious past and to highly regarded individuals, artists and poets. This paper focuses on thirteen monuments that were erected from 1866 to 1914 in this model part of the city and discusses issues related to the clients, the artists and the individuals to whom they were dedicated. The monuments that extend along the Zelena potkova can match the monuments on the Ringstraße, both examples are part of a common heritage from the reign of Franz Joseph I of Austria.