Museum Dogs

Francisco de Goya Spanish, Half-Submerged Dog 1820–1823 Mixed technique; wall transferred to canvas 131 x 79 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid http://tinyurl.com/6hocwod 

Museum Dogs is finishing out its look at Goya’s dogs (see the rest at museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/goya) with perhaps his most memorable one.

Half-Submerged Dog (one of the many names by which it has come to be known), is one of Goya’s Black Paintings—somber, sometimes grotesque works made on the walls of the house he lived in from 1819 to 1823. The little house was known as “la Quinta del Sordo,” Villa of the Deaf Man, a name which it had acquired before Goya, who was deaf, moved in. There are 14 paintings in all, painted with a variety of media directly onto the walls; Half-Submerged Dog was next to the door on the upper floor. Photographs of the paintings in situ show them within frames also painted onto the walls. None of the paintings were named by Goya himself. Indeed, at least one scholar believes that the paintings were not by Goya at all but rather done later by his grandson as part of a moneymaking scheme. (The whole story is fascinating; an article in the New York Times from 2003 has the full scoop: http://tinyurl.com/l3qgtf8.) In 1873, Baron Émile d'Erlanger, a French banker, bought la Quinta del Sordo before it could be demolished. He arranged for the paintings (then unequivocally attributed to Goya) to be transferred to canvas—a process that damaged them considerably—and then exhibited them at the Paris World’s Fair in 1878 with the hope of selling them. No one was interested, so in 1881, he donated them to the Museo del Prado in Madrid, where they remain to this day.[1]

Regardless of whether Goya made the black paintings or not, they are definitely striking. They do fit in with themes found in Goya’s work, like the terror of living in a world upended by political and civil strife; the frailty, ugliness, and anxiety of life; and the general horribleness of people. Along with Half-Submerged Dog, perhaps the most well-known of the Black Paintings—and indeed, all of Goya’s work—is Saturn Devouring His Son (http://tinyurl.com/qycqsk5). Creepy stuff, no?

The disturbing and enigmatic nature of Half-Submerged Dog made it a favorite of Expressionists, Surrealists, and other such artists in the 20th century; they cited it in particular among the Black Paintings as a precursor to modern art. With the Black Paintings, Goya (or whoever) was creating freely, making art for no other purpose but pure expression.[2]

Though not gruesome like Saturn, Half-Submerged Dog is deeply unsettling. In it, a dog’s head is just visible over a brown mass at the bottom of the picture, while an empty field of color looms overhead. A dark patch in the upper right corner is probably a stain or the remnant of a previous painting, but it adds to the foreboding atmosphere of the scene. Is the dog drowning in quicksand? Is he hiding in fear behind a hillock? The situation is open to different interpretations, all of them dire. The dog looks up with an expression of trepidation mixed with pathetic hope, but he is all too aware of something bad to come.  

Museum Dogs is staffed by weenies who are easily freaked out. We do not like to see animals in distress in real life or in any sort of representation; hence the brevity of analysis for Half-Submerged Dog. There is plenty of scholarship by others on the painting, and I encourage you to seek it out. 

. . .

And on that glum note, Museum Dogs finishes its Goya binge. There are plenty more paintings by Goya that feature dogs. Definitely keep an eye out for them in your travels through art. 

And stay tuned here for more (and less depressing) dogs!

Notes __________________ 1. Museo del Prado, “Half-submerged Dog,” object description, online gallery, http://tinyurl.com/6hocwod; Wikipedia, “Black Paintings,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Paintings, accessed March 11, 2015; Arthur Lublow, “The Secret of the Black Paintings,” New York Times (July 27, 2003), http://tinyurl.com/l3qgtf8.

Francisco de Goya Spanish, 1746–1828 Boys with Mastiffs 1786 Oil on canvas 112 cm x 145 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid http://tinyurl.com/qgq5m4j

Museum Dogs returns with more dogs by Francisco de Goya (whose work we’ve been looking at for a while now: museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/goya), this time—as promised—big ones. The trend around here recently has been to squee over little dogs, but let it not be said that Museum Dogs is sizeist or breedist. Our official position is that all dogs are excellent, regardless of size or type.  

Goya made a set of 10 cartoons for tapestries for the Palace of El Pardo between 1776 and 1778; between 1776 and 1791, he made 46 more (of which today’s painting is one), most of which are now in the collection of the Prado. Those cartoons, while not Goya's most famous works, make up the bulk of his output as a painter. The designs were so popular that the Santa Bárbara factory wove tapestries of them into the nineteenth century.[i]

The kings of Castile had hunted in the woodlands of El Pardo since the 13th century. King Henry III of Castile first built a hunting pavilion on the site, then Holy Roman Emperor Charles V renovated it into the Palace of El Pardo. In 1604, the palace burned down—along with its collection of artwork. King Philip III of Spain rebuilt the palace and Charles III expanded it. Phillip V and Charles III regularly stayed at El Pardo from January through part of April; the wintertime use prompted them to commission series of tapestries for decoration. Goya made the designs, the Bayeu brothers adapted them, and the tapestries were woven at the Royal Manufactory of Santa Bárbara in Madrid. Today’s painting is part of a series of designs for tapestries meant to be hung in the dining room of the Prince of Asturias (the crown prince, then the future Charles IV), but Charles III died—and the prince took over as king—before the finished tapestries were delivered. Charles IV moved many of the tapestries to monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, and the sets were broken up. Generalissimo Franco lived at El Pardo after the Spanish Civil War, but since then, it has been used as a residence for visiting heads of state and as a tourist attraction.[ii] (Here are a blogger’s photographs of the palace, including the dining room: http://tinyurl.com/pzs5sc2.)

The Prado has the other tapestry cartoons that Goya made in 1786: http://tinyurl.com/qfbeykv (the search results are listed in chronological order). And check out a tapestry made from one of Goya's designs, still at El Pardo: http://tinyurl.com/pcj95gw.

The tapestry version of Boys with Mastiffs was originally  intended to hang over a door. It was paired with another over-door tapestry, Boy Riding a Ram, the cartoon of which is now at the Art Institute of Chicago (http://tinyurl.com/p3krz9g).[iii]  

The breed of the dogs in the painting is unclear; they are obviously some sort of mastiff, but which type? A plausible guess is that they are related to the breed known today as the Alano Español (Spanish alaunt). The Alano Español dates back to the fourth century AD, coinciding with the entry of Indo-European tribes—including the Alans—into the Iberian Peninsula. The Alans kept large dogs for guarding livestock and hunting, and it was from those dogs that the various alaunt breeds originated. The first written reference to alaunts dates from 1347 in the "Book of Hunting" by Alfonso XI. By the seventeenth century, the alaunt had branched out into other breeds, and the term “alaunt” alone fell out of use. In Spain, the categories of alaunt were Mastins, Alanos, and Lebrels. Those groups were further separated as the ayuda (helper) and the presa (offense types, like the presa canario). Alanos were a diverse group, with different characteristics depending on the dog's job—hunting dogs were lighter and had longer snouts, while cattle-guarding dogs were heavier and had shorter faces. The breed now known as the Alano Español was used for hunting wild boar and other big, fierce game; guarding cattle herds; in bullfighting (Goya recorded them in his etchings of bullfights); and as war dogs. In that last capacity, they were frequently used by the conquistadors in the New World to subjugate and terrorize the native people.[iv]

Our canine heroes have cropped ears (typical in dogs who were hunters, defenders, or fighters) and light brindle coats. They wear heavy collars and harnesses or muzzles, and they are tethered together. Are these guard dogs? Hunting dogs? Bullfighters? The boys seem to be preparing them for some specific task. I very much hope they are not fighting dogs; that is a cruel sport for all the animals involved. I would like to think that these fellows are guard dogs or maybe hunting dogs. Of course mastiffs are big and powerful and can be fierce, but the general consensus is that they are, at heart, big gentle mushes. The calmness of big dogs—the seeming disconnect between their appearance and temperament—is endlessly delightful. I once met an enormous brindle mastiff named Pickles, and he was a phlegmatic but sweet fellow. The two mastiffs in the painting must be similarly placid. The little boys would probably stay far away from the dogs, even muzzled, if they were aggressive. No, I think these two dogs are completely unperturbed by the boys’ attentions and are happy to just hang around and chat.

WHAT ARE THE KIDS UP TO, CARLOS? I DON’T KNOW, LUIS. IT’S A NICE DAY, THOUGH, DON’ T YOU THINK? IT IS INDEED, CARLOS. MAYBE THE KIDS WILL GIVE US SOME SKRITCHES. THAT WOULD BE NICE. YES, IT WOULD. THAT SPOT BY MY TAIL IS PRETTY ITCHY. READY TO GO TO WORK, CARLOS? YEP. LET’S GET TO IT, LUIS. IT’S GOOD TO FEEL USEFUL.  

Notes _________________________________________

[i] Albert Frederick Calvert, Goya: An Account of His Life and Works, (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1908), p. 24, http://tinyurl.com/pjzxxny. See pp. 24–29 for an assessment of Goya’s tapestry designs.

[ii] Patrimonio Nacional, "Royal Palace of El Pardo," www.patrimonionacional.es/en/real-sitio/palacios/8282; Wikipedia, "Royal Palace of El Pardo," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Palace_of_El_Pardo, accessed March 2, 2015; Museo Nacional del Prado, “Boys with Mastiffs,” object description, http://tinyurl.com/qgq5m4j.

[iii] Prado, “Boys with Mastiffs.”

Fracisco de Goya Spanish, 1746–1828 Retrato de Joaquina Candado Ricarte c. 1802–1804 Oil on canvas 169 x 118 cm Museu de Belles Arts de Valencia http://tinyurl.com/l4yj2hm

Museum Dogs is ending the workweek with one of the cutest dogs in Western art: another Little White Hairy Dog by Francisco de Goya. Take a look at more of Goya’s dogs—little, white, hairy, and otherwise—at museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/goya.

Scholars differ on who, exactly, the subject of this portrait is, but the most plausible candidate is Joaquina Candado Ricarte. She was born in Zaragoza, Aragon (the same region as Goya), in 1769 to Joaquin Candado, who was a military man, and Josefa Ricarte. By the time she was 20, Joaquina had married, was widowed, and remarried within the space of two years. Her second husband was the paymaster of the Real Fábrica de Salitre de la Corte de Madrid, the state-run gunpowder factories in Madrid. Marrying him raised Joaquina’s socioeconomic status, making her rich enough to commission a full-length portrait and be depicted wearing fashionable clothes and accompanied by a lapdog, a signifier of wealth and position. Because of its similarity with another of Goya’s portraits (his 1803 likeness of Countess of Fernán Nuñez), this one has been dated to sometime between 1802 and 1804. Joaquina would have been a little over 30 years old when she posed for him.[1]

In the portrait, Joaquina is dressed in a somber but very fine black gown with a white chemise at the decolletage, black lace mantilla, tan kid gloves, and silver slippers. She sits outdoors on a large fallen log, against a rather dismal, if indistinct, background. The dark clothing and setting serve to make her fair and rosy face stand out all the more. Her expression is serene; this is a respectable, well-to-do woman who is content in her position without being snobby about it.

Accompanying Joaquina—and visually echoing her white chemise—is an absolutely ADORABLE Little White Hairy Dog. She is just a wee little thing, mostly hair with some black dots for a face. Goya’s sketchy, quick brushwork really captures the softness of the dog’s tousled coat; it makes the viewer want to reach in and pat her! Our canine hero, who is probably a Maltese or Bolognese or other bichon-type dog, looks rather uncertain about her situation. She certainly is intently focused on the viewer (or something just to the viewer’s left); perhaps she is guarding her person, ready to bark an alarm at the first sign of trouble. Or, just as likely, she thinks that the viewer has food and is trying to cadge a treat by intense concentration and sheer force of will. WHAT IS GOING ON WHO ARE YOU DO NOT MESS WITH MY PERSON OR I WILL HAVE TO GET TOUGH DO YOU HAVE FOOD I THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE FOOD PLEASE MAY I HAVE SOME OF YOUR FOOD?

. . .

As has often been mentioned in this blog, Little Hairy Dogs are kryptonite over here at Museum Dogs. We simply cannot resist them. However, for the sake of balance and for all you readers who prefer big dogs, stay tuned—there is a very big dog indeed to come in the next post!

Note _________________________________

Francisco de Goya Spanish, 1746–1828 Doña Francisca Vicenta Chollet y Caballero 1806 Oil on canvas 40 1/2 in x 31 7/8 in Norton Simon Art Foundation http://tinyurl.com/pmxosul

Another day, another dog by Goya. And a pug, no less! Take a look at the previous posts on Goya, which include a biographical sketch and some amazing dogs: museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/goya.  

The human subject of today's painting is something of a mystery; the Museum Dogs research team has not been able to find much information—in English, anyway—on Francesca Vicenta Chollet, including her birth and death dates. One piece of information that came to light, however, is that in 1797, she married Antonio Noriega de Bada. He was the high treasurer of Spain, a position he got from his friend and ally Manuel Godoy. Noriega did not do well with the country's finances; the national debt nearly doubled under his administration. In 1808, the Mutiny of Aranjuez deposed both Godoy as first minister and Charles IV as king. Noriega was subsequently arrested as a collaborator with the French army, released, then rearrested. He was exonerated while in prison, but a mix-up over some French fellow prisoners got him killed by a Spanish lynch mob.[1] 

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has a portrait by Goya of Antonio Noriega de Bada: http://tinyurl.com/nhlsa8b. That one was done in 1801, and Goya's 1806 portrait of Francisca Vicenta Chollet was possibly meant as a pendant to the earlier painting. Goya reworked the portrait a few times, including adding the pug. Indeed, he

did not conceive of the painting with the pug, which he introduced after having tried a book or another inert object. He had already painted a much grander lady, the marchioness of Pontejos, walking in the landscape with her pug in a formal portrait of 1786 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., http://tinyurl.com/mjv5hf9), and the pug surely provided him with a sense of immediacy in this otherwise conventional portrait.[2]

The pug certainly gives Chollet a touch of brio that counterbalances her serious expression. 

As Museum Dogs has mentioned before, pugs were popular pets for wealthy European ladies from the seventeenth century onward, and they appear in any number of portraits––either along with human subjects or as subjects in their own right. For as long as pugs have been fashionable companions, critics have denounced the breed as having no practical value; however, the naysayers' views are easily refuted. An author in the late nineteenth century summarized the dog's charms, which had long been known to pug fanciers:

The pug, when made a companion of, shows a high intelligence; as house dogs they are ever on the alert, and promptly give notice of a stranger's approach, and from their extremely active, I may say merry, habits, they are most interesting pets, and well repay by their gratitude any affection and kindness bestowed on them.[3] 

The pug accompanying Francisca Vicenta Chollet is a wee little dog. His ears are pretty severely cropped (grr; not cool), and his tail is more or less straight rather than the usual tightly curled pug tail. He wears a very fancy collar embroidered with gold and decorated with feathers all around. Francisca sports some elaborate jewelry; likewise must the pug be accessorized! Our canine hero's expression is one of pride and contentment––both in his snazzy attire and in his person. Regardless of Chollet's dour appearance (Goya's likeness certainly does not flatter her) and any of her personal failings, her pug is a loyal and genuine friend. Pugs are always up for fun, and no doubt this one lifted his person's spirits on a regular basis. He is definitely ready for mischief!  

There is nothing like a small dog to cheer up a sad lady.  

Notes ______________________

1. Wikipedia, "Antonio Noriega de Bada," http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Noriega_de_Bada,accessed February 26, 2015; National Gallery of Art, "Don Antonio Noriega," From the Tour: Francisco de Goya, Object 4 of 9,http://tinyurl.com/o2bca6l.

2. Richard R. Brettell and Stephen Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, Volume 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006) p. 52.

Francisco de Goya Spanish, 1746–1828 Retrato de la duquesa de Alba (Portrait of the Duchess of Alba) 1795 Oil on canvas 194 × 130 cm Alba Family Collection, Madrid

Museum Dogs is continuing its look the work of Francisco de Goya. Check out the previous posts (museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/goya) for a biographical sketch of the artist and some of his wonderful dogs. Today’s painting is a striking portrait of both a truly amazing Little White Hairy Dog and a fascinating lady—the Duchess of Alba.  

María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva-Álvarez de Toledo y Silva (1762–1802) was the only daughter of the Duke of Huéscar and the Countess of Oropesa. She grew up spoiled in luxury but probably rather lonely. Her father died when she was eight and her mother remarried two more times (once on the same day as Cayetana). Cayetana was married off in at age 12 to José María Álvarez de Toledo—a man as wealthy and titled as she was. Indeed, a year later, Cayetana inherited her grandfather's title and became the Duchess of Alba. The position came with a boatload of other titles, and together with the those she got from her husband, Cayetana was the most titled person in all of Europe at the time. The Duchess and Duke (Álvarez de Toledo became the duke via marriage) were the wealthiest couple in Spain and held a lot of influence. The Duke was a patron of the arts, commissioning portraits from Goya and musical works from Joseph Haydn, and was a potential replacement for Manuel de Godoy (we've heard of him before: http://tinyurl.com/mgktvlb and http://tinyurl.com/pe93l59) as first minister to the king. They had no children together, but the Duchess later adopted a daughter, María Luisa de la Luz. The Duke died in 1796, leaving the Duchess to whoop it up on her own. She was quite a character—something of an eccentric and certainly freewheeling in her ways. All sorts of  outrageous stories, probably largely untrue, circulated about her: that she had affairs with bullfighters, went out at night dressed as a maja (a low-class Spanish woman) to mix with more libertine company, and, most notably, that she and Goya had a romantic relationship. In 1795, the Duke of Alba commissioned Goya to paint portraits of him and his wife—the latter of which is today’s painting. After the Duke’s death, Goya painted and drew quite a few likenesses of the Duchess, suggesting at least a friendship, if not an affair. (His very sexy painting La maja desnuda, http://tinyurl.com/ky6le8g, is often rumored to depict the Duchess, but that theory has been pretty much debunked.) The difference in age (16 years) and vast discrepancy in social status between the two made a romance unlikely for a beautiful and flirtatious woman like the Duchess. Still, she was a very public figure (and a favorite of the Spanish people) and bound to attract scandal and gossip. She died in 1802 at age 40. The cause was tuberculosis, though later stories claimed that she was poisoned as a result of a quarrel with the queen or the queen’s lover Manuel de Godoy. After the Duchess's death, her titles went to a relative, whose direct line still exists today.[1] 

The Duchess of Alba really caught the public imagination, both during her lifetime and after, and the possible romance between her and Goya has inspired novels, movies (most notably, 1958’s The Naked Maja, with Ava Gardner and Anthony Franciosa), and even scholarly works.[2] Who doesn’t love a juicy story?

Regardless of what kind of relationship existed between Goya and the Duchess of Alba, his 1795 portrait of her is absolutely tremendous. Set against a muted landscape, the Duchess nearly pops out of the canvas in her simple white dress and bright red accessories. Her hair is truly amazing (in addition to dogs, we here at Museum Dogs love big hair); the jet black curls frame her pale face, which is punctuated by bold eyebrows. This is a woman at the height of her beauty and power, and she is not a lady to be messed with! With her right hand, she points to an inscription in the sand, which is Goya’s signature for the painting: “A la Duquesa de Alba. Fr. de Goya 1795.” 

Accompanying the Duchess is an impressive figure in his own right—a Little White Hairy Dog! He looks like the same sort of dog as the one featured in Goya’s portrait of the Condesa de Chinchón (http://tinyurl.com/mgktvlb), that is, some sort of bichon-type dog, probably a Bolognese. Bologneses have been popular pets since ancient times; little white hairy dogs are mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and art, and the earliest record of the Bolognese is from the year 1200.[3] Whether or not the breed originated in the city of Bologna, the dog and city were very much associated. Indeed, in The History of Pompey the Little, an English novel from 1751 featuring a canine protagonist, the narrator cites Bologna as a place “famous for lap-dogs.”[4] Bologneses and other, similar, LWHDs appear throughout Western art, often accompanying the human subject of a portrait. 

The Duchess’s LWHD wears a lion haircut and a red bow, matching his person’s, around his rear left leg. His expression, just visible through the mop of hair over his eyes, is a little haughty and a little grumpy but also somewhat thoughtful. Like his person, this dog is well aware of his power and importance and has no dearth of self-esteem. He demands the respect due to a dog in his exalted position, yet he is keenly aware of the responsibilities of such greatness. He thinks and feels deeply about his role in the world; he is an enlightened dog and a dog of the Enlightenment. THE RIGHTS OF MAN ARE ALL WELL AND GOOD AS LONG AS THE HUMANS KEEP GIVING ME TREATS BUT I ASK YOU WHAT ABOUT THE RIGHTS OF DOG?!

Notes _________________________ 1. Wikipedia, "María Cayetana de Silva, 13th Duchess of Alba," http://tinyurl.com/pk66flp; Wikipedia, "Maria Teresa de Silva Alvarez de Toledo," http://tinyurl.com/m7pokrp; Elizabeth Nash, “The truth about Spanish art's most famous love story,” The Independent (January 26, 2007), http://tinyurl.com/lkgdotr.  

2. Nash, 2007.

3. Wikipedia, “Bolognese (dog),” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolognese_(dog), accessed February 24, 2015. 

Francisco de Goya Spanish, 1746–1828

Carlos III, cazador (Charles III, Hunter) c. 1787 Oil on canvas 207 cm x 126 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid http://tinyurl.com/o4nj3ol

Retrato de Carlos IV como cazador (Portrait of Charles IV as a Hunter) 1799 Oil on canvas 208 x 129 cm Patrimonio Nacional, Palacio Real de Madrid http://tinyurl.com/nqdxb2b

And we’re back after a bit of a hiatus; life got in the way of writing here at Museum Dogs HQ, but everything is now, I think, straightened out. When Museum Dogs last convened, Goya was on the bill—and so he continues to be. Goya was an interesting fellow and a painter of some amazing dogs. Check out his bio and two of the greatest dogs in Western art at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/goya. Today’s dogs are no less charming, and they have the added distinction of being royalty, belonging to Charles III and Charles IV of Spain. 

Charles III (1716–1788) was the son of Philip V of Spain and Philip’s second wife, Elisabeth Farnese. (Philip was a grandson of Louis XIV of France.) At age 15, Charles inherited the title of Duke of Parma and Piacenza from his granduncle. Just a few years later, he had managed to conquer (relatively civilly) the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and in 1735, at age 18, he became king of both Naples and Sicily. (Europe was a mess of kingdoms and principalities who fought with each other until the 20th century; also, all the monarchs and rulers were related—for instance, Charles III of Spain was a great-grandson of Louis XIV of France.) Charles’s rule in Italy was characterized by social reforms based on Enlightenment ideas, economic prosperity, and an emphasis on the arts. In 1738, Charles married Maria Amalia of Saxony. Their union was, apparently, a loving one. She was an intelligent and cultured person who oversaw building and other projects in her husband’s territories, and she participated in politics and affairs of state. Charles and Maria Amalia had 13 children, 8 of whom survived to adulthood.  Charles became the king of Spain—as Charles III—in 1759 when his half-brother, Ferdinand VI of Spain, died. Adhering to the Treaty of Vienna, Charles relinquished his titles in Naples and Sicily, giving them to one of his sons. In Spain, Charles continued the reforms he had made in Italy as an “enlightened despot”; following the principles of the Enlightenment, he promoted religious toleration, freedom of speech and the press, and the right to hold private property as well as emphasizing the arts, sciences, and education. He also outlawed bullfighting, which he (rightly) viewed as a needlessly cruel activity. Under Charles III’s reign, Spain became more of a cohesive nation—among other patriotic improvements, Charles spruced up the capital city of Madrid and instituted a flag and national anthem, both of which are still used today. Charles’s beloved wife, Maria Amalia, died of tuberculosis in 1760; Charles died in 1788.[1]

Charles III’s second son succeeded him as Charles IV (1748–1819). (The eldest son, Felipe, was developmentally disabled and epileptic and was considered unfit to become king.) Charles IV was born in Naples while his father was the king there, and in 1765, he married his first cousin Maria Luisa. Charles IV was not much into ruling; he left affairs of state to his wife and his (and his father’s) first minister, the Count of Floridablanca. (Floridablanca was the brother-in-law of the Marquesa de Pontejos, who was featured on Museum Dogs last week: http://tinyurl.com/mjv5hf9.) Floridablanca was ousted in 1792 and replaced with a more liberal official, but after the French Revolution began, he was booted out and replaced by Manuel de Godoy, widely reputed to be Queen Maria Luisa’s lover. He was also the husband of the Condesa de Chinchón, another Museum Dogs alum: http://tinyurl.com/mgktvlb. At first, Spain came out against the execution of the French king, and France declared war on Spain. Later, France forced Spain into an alliance against Great Britain. Spain, basically under the control of Godoy, flipped back and forth between alliances with Britain and France, which the Spanish people were not happy about. Godoy and Charles IV lost favor, the crown prince attempted a coup, and in 1808, riots and pressure from Napoleon forced Charles IV to abdicate. He, his wife, and his son Ferdinand were held captive in France for three years. After Napoleon—and the regime he instituted in Spain—fell, Ferdinand took over as king. Charles IV and his wife noodled around Europe for a few years, settled in Rome, and both died there in 1819.[2]

Both Charles III and IV were very fond of hunting, though the latter apparently preferred it to actually running the country.[3] Throughout Europe, hunting had long been a royal pastime, and many monarchs commissioned hunting themed portraits and decorated their palaces with hunting scenes.  In France, for instance, the palace of Fontainebleau was decorated as a hunting lodge (http://tinyurl.com/nlwy57t), and Louis XV had portraits made of his favorite hunting dogs (http://tinyurl.com/l374ax9). In Spain, there was a history of royal and noble personages being depicted as hunters. Velazquez, whose portraiture style Goya drew on, made a number of such works; his portrait of Philip IV of Spain is one: http://tinyurl.com/nrqzn9o. 

Goya’s portrait of Charles III was made shortly before the king’s death in 1788. In it, Charles is presented as an old man who is stooped with age yet still a vibrant force. Set against a backdrop of the mountains outside of Madrid, the king wears his royal sash over a the traditional hunter’s yellow waistcoat. Gaiters and a long gun (a musket?) complete the look.  

Curled up at Chaz’s feet is a lovely white hound. She is a good-sized dog, and she wears a heavy collar that bears an inscription marking her as belonging to the king. She is curled into a tight bun and is fast asleep (perhaps a nod to the king’s advanced age). Either she is tuckered out from a long day of running around the countryside or she has decided that right now, a snooze is better than hunting. A Very Good and Very Sweet dog! 

Goya painted Charles IV against a similarly moody mountainous backdrop. The king wears a hunter’s yellow waistcoat, stout boots, and a gaily patterned coat. Sitting at his feet and looking up at him with unmitigated admiration and delight is a charming dog. He looks very similar to the breed known as the Sabueso Español (Spanish hound), which has been found in Spain since the Medieval era and mentioned in various treatises on hunting from the fourteenth century on. The basic characteristics of the Spanish hound are a body slightly longer than the dog’s height; long, floppy ears that curl back a bit from the head, beagle-like legs and feet, and a dignified, baleful expression.[4] A nineteenth-century English novel describes a Spanish hound as “possessing much of his nation's grave dignity of demeanor, and a face brimful of fine dog-intellect and feeling.”[5] Charles IV’s dog to a T! Our canine hero, like his counterpart in Charles III’s portrait, wears a thick collar with an inscription on it. His expression is one of pure love and joy. His person is his world! I LOVE MY PERSON SO MUCH I CAN BARELY CONTAIN MYSELF HE IS THE BEST PERSON A DOG COULD HAVE!!! Whatever his failings as a leader, Chaz IV gets a bit of a pass from me for being a dog person. It also goes to show that no matter how big a doofus a person is, his dog will still worship him

. . .

Both of these portraits by Goya were copied numerous times, many by assistants in Goya’s workshop. Indeed, the portrait of Charles III in the collection of the Prado in Madrid is a copy of the original, which is in the Fernán Núñez Palace. There is a copy, albeit not a great one, of Charles IV’s portrait in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.: http://tinyurl.com/ozsqvg7. It has been attributed to Augustín Esteve, Goya’s principal assistant in the 1790s, but it could have been by another member of Goya’s workshop.[6]

. . .

While writing today’s post, all I could think of was this: http://tinyurl.com/kuhr4c8. Oh my unspeakable wife Queen Lisa!

Notes _______________________________ 1. Wikipedia, “Charles III of Spain,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_III_of_Spain, accessed February 18, 2015.

2. Wikipedia, “Charles IV of Spain,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_IV_of_Spain, accessed February 18, 2015.

3. Ibid.

4. Wikipedia, “Sabueso Español,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabueso_Español, accessed February 18, 2015.

5. Annie Edwards, A Vagabond Heroine (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1873), p. 43, http://tinyurl.com/mh9zlq5.

Francisco de Goya Spanish, 1746–1828 María Teresa de Borbón y Vallabriga, later Condesa de Chinchón 1783 Oil on canvas 134.5 x 117.5 cm Not currently on view National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.52267.html

Museum Dogs is entering day two of a Goya binge; check out the previous post for a biographical sketch and an amazing pug (http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/goya). Today’s dog, however, might be just as amazing.

The father of the subject of the painting was Luis de Borbón of Spain, who commissioned a number of portraits from Goya. Luis was the younger brother of King Charles III of Spain. He was sent into the clergy and made a cardinal, but his drinking and womanizing forced him to renounce his orders at the age of 27. In 1776, he married María Teresa de Vallabriga y Rozas—a noblewoman of much lower rank and 30 years younger. The difference between Luis's and  María Teresa's social ranks got them both banished from Madrid and the royal court, and their children (Luis,  María Teresa, and  María Luisa) were denied the family name of Borbon. To compensate, Don Luis was a big patron of art and culture, and he was the first of the Spanish royal family to commission portraits from Goya.[1]

The subject of today's painting, María Teresa de Borbón y Vallabriga, had a very sad life. She was born in 1779 or 1780 (sources differ), the second child and eldest daughter of Don Luis. On his death—when she was five—she was packed off to a convent for 12 years. At the insistence of the king and queen, she married Manuel Godoy, first minister to Charles IV and a favorite advisor at court, in 1797. She had never met the man but agreed to the marriage to improve her family's standing—her father's titles and surname (Borbón) were returned to her and her siblings in exchange for the marriage. Godoy, however, had really wanted to marry someone else, and carried on with his mistress for years—to the point of having her live with him and  María Teresa. The queen, who had an interest in Godoy, constantly meddled in the marriage, and Godoy spoke openly of completely despising  María Teresa. In 1800, their only one child was born, Carlotta Luisa de Godoy y Borbón. In 1803,  María Teresa’s older brother renounced his title for some reason, and so she was made the Condesa de Chinchón. Five years later, her awful husband was removed from office in a coup and jailed.  María Teresa took the opportunity to flee to Toledo to her brother. During the Napoleonic wars, she became popular for her ardent support of Spanish independence, but she spent those years in financial hardship. The death of her brother in 1823 forced  María Teresa into exile in Paris, where she engaged in a disastrous love affair with a manipulative and cruel man. She died of cancer at age 48 or 49 in 1828. Her husband promptly married his mistress of 40 years.[2]

María Teresa appears in four paintings by Goya: as a tot-in-arms in the group portrait The Family of Don Luis (http://tinyurl.com/okkdx54), the 1783 portrait, and two portraits as an adult:

Francisco de Goya Portrait of María Teresa, Countess of Chinchón c. 1798 Oil on Canvas 220x140 Uffizi Gallery, Florence www.museumsinflorence.com/uffizi/18/18.html

Francisco de Goya The Countess of Chinchón 1800 Oil on canvas 216 x 114 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid http://tinyurl.com/p49braw

Goya was, apparently, a lifelong friend and supporter of poor María Teresa.

In the 1783 portrait,  María Teresa is about four and a half (not two years and nine months, as Goya’s inscription in the lower left corner says). Although still almost a toddler in the painting, her pose and expression are mature and self-assured. She wears fashionable adult clothes—and the traditional lace mantilla that had become a national symbol of Spain by the eighteenth century. Standing on a terrace of her father’s palace at the base of the Sierra de Gredos, María Teresa is an imperious little girl. Goya painted her from a low viewpoint in order to give her a monumental stature. Like in the portrait by Goya featured in the previous post, Maria Teresa is painted in style reminiscent of Velázquez—a big influence on Goya and also a nod to the tradition of royal portraiture in Spain. Don Luis might have been trying to show that his family should be accepted as full members of the royal court in Madrid.[3]

Not only is the human subject of the painting a lively character; so is the canine one—a LITTLE WHITE HAIRY DOG! He is a complete mop! Indeed, his eyes are covered by his mane, and his paws are hidden in tufts of hair. The little dog’s expression is, however, obviously serious and resolute. This is not a frivolous dog, whatever his haircut might lead one to believe. No—he is a dog who thinks and feels deeply about things, he a poet and a philosopher who is ready to dispense righteous justice with a bark or give comfort to his person at any time, but especially when treats are involved. He is also a noble dog, one who navigates the mysteries of life with the calm assurance of his own importance. Yes indeed, this is  Very Important Little White Hairy Dog! OH YES WELL I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NICE TO INCLUDE A HUMAN IN MY PORTRAIT AS A SYMBOL OF LOYALTY AND OF MY NOBLE STATUS A DOG OF MY RANK AND INTELLIGENCE MUST KEEP UP APPEARANCES IS IT TIME FOR A TREAT YET ALL OF THIS POSING HAS MADE ME HUNGRY.

Notes _________________________

1. Wikipedia, “María Teresa de Borbón y Vallabriga,” http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/María_Teresa_de_Borbón_y_Vallabriga, accessed February 19, 2015; Jonathan Brown, and Richard G. Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. (Washington, D.C., 1990), pp. 27–31.

2. Ibid.

Francisco de Goya Spanish, 1746–1828 The Marquesa de Pontejos c. 1786 Oil on canvas 210.3 x 127 cm On view in Gallery 52 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.92.html

Museum Dogs comes roaring back from a long weekend with one of the greatest dogs in Western art: Goya’s pug. Small in stature but great in spirit, the pug in today’s painting is as memorable as the human subject. Francisco de Goya has been called “the last great artist in the employ of European kings as an official decorator and portraitist, and the first of his profession to depict with profound sympathy and alarming realism the often senseless and ill-fated lives of ordinary people.”[1] He was born in a small town in 1746, the son of a gilder and an impoverished noblewoman. After an apprenticeship and an unsuccessful early career, he spent a year or so in Italy, where he won honorable mention in an art competition. That success got Goya some commissions for religious paintings in Saragossa, where he set up shop. In 1773, he married Josefa Bayeu, the sister of the top Spanish artist at the royal court in Madrid. The brother-in-law gave Goya’s career a boost by getting him a position at the royal tapestry factory, where he made 63 tapestry designs over the next 20 years. A series of etchings based on paintings by Velázquez (a major artistic influence on Goya) received the attention of the Academia in Madrid; Goya was made a member in 1780 and appointed deputy director five years later. His first portrait commission came in 1783, and portraits quickly became his bread and butter. Indeed, in 1786, Charles III of Spain hired Goya for his court, as did Charles IV after him. In 1799, Goya received the title of First Court Painter, which brought him a tidy salary. Amid his success with the Spanish court, in 1792, Goya was stricken with a serious (and mysterious) year-long illness that  left him deaf and emotionally and artistically shaken. He turned to subjects of fantasy and biting social commentary in his art, particularly his etchings. As the nineteenth century began, Europe was in turmoil from the Napoleonic wars. Goya rode out the upheavals in Spain from the Peninsular War (Spain, Britain, and Portugal vs. France for control of the Iberian Peninsula) and the Spanish War of Independence (1808–1814). The latter prompted his series of 82 disturbing etchings, Disasters of War. He continued to paint portraits after the wars but produced many genre scenes in paintings, drawings, and etchings. His mysterious illness returned in 1819, and he almost did not recover. The experience was a traumatic one, and in response, Goya made the strange and unsettling “Black Paintings” on the walls of his house in Madrid. He moved to France in 1824, where he lived until his death in 1828.[2]

The subject of today’s portrait, María Ana de Pontejos y Sandoval, the Marquesa de Pontejos, was a tough lady who lived a pretty remarkable life. Born into a very wealthy noble family in 1762, in 1786, she married Francisco de Monino y Redondo, the Spanish ambassador to Portugal and the brother of the first minister to the king. The brother-in-law, Conde de la Floridablanca, was a very big wheel at the time, and María Ana got to hobnob in the highest echelons of the Spanish court. She even became an honorary member of the Real Sociedad Económica (Royal Society of Economics). Political upheaval got the brother-in-law fired from his position, and María Ana and her husband were forced into exile in Murcia. Meanwhile, María Ana became the Marquesa de Pontejos in 1807 after her father died. Husband number one died in 1808, but the Marquesa married again quickly, to a royal bodyguard from a well-to-do Sevillian family. Husband number two popped off in 1817, and again, the Marquesa (who was, by the way, independently wealthy) quickly remarried. Husband number three, Joaquín Pérez Vizcaino y Moles, was nearly 30 years her junior. A proponent of liberal reforms (views that the Marquesa shared), he joined the national militia against King Ferdinand VII. That move forced him and the Marquesa to flee Spain. They bummed around Europe, mostly France, for the next 11 years. The French police kept close tabs on the couple; the Marquesa was known for her vehement anti-clergy views (the clergy in Spain were associated with repression and authoritarianism), and she supposedly had a “talent for intrigue.” A less conservative government in Spain allowed the Marquesa and her husband to return to their homeland in 1833. The Marquesa died a year later, and her widower used the money from her estate to fund successful business and charitable ventures.[3]  

Goya’s portrait of the Marquesa de Pontejos was probably painted on the occasion of her first marriage. The timing is right, and she olds a carnation—a symbol of pure love found in European engagement portraits for centuries. Her outfit is heavily influenced by French fashions, specifically, the vogue started by Marie Antoinette for dressing like a shepherdess. Well, a heavily idealized version of a shepherdess. The pastoral setting was a common one in eighteenth-century portraiture, Spanish nobility included. The Marquesa’s pose and expression, however, show the influence of Velásquesz. By depicting the Marquesa wearing French fashion and posed à la Velásquez, Goya reflected the Marquesa’s (and her husband’s and brother-in-law’s) sociopolitical leanings: “reconciling French ideas with Spanish beliefs and traditions.”[4] 

And then there is . . . THE PUG!  She is truly a pug among pugs, a dog among dogs, perhaps even one of the greatest Museum Dogs of all time! Pugs were popular lap dogs in Europe since at least the seventeenth century, and they were known then—just as now—as excellent companions. This pug seems to be a particularly alert, intelligent, and energetic dog. Nearly life-sized in the painting, our little black-masked hero wears a pink ribbon tied in a big bow and decorated with three jingle bells. Her ears appear to be cropped—a cruel practice; pugs’ ears, for a time, were often cropped so severely as to be completely shorn off—but perhaps they are merely folded back a bit. Her alert black eyes are focused just off to the right of the viewer, her wee pink tongue pokes out of her mouth, and she raises a curious paw. There is something of interest in view! Is it food? Is it an opportunity for fun or mischief? Pugs always know where the fun is and put themselves right in the middle of it. And if there is no fun happening, they will make some. The Marquesa lived through some trying circumstances; no doubt an affectionate, loyal, and fun-loving pug was a very good and helpful friend to her. A hero pug!

A very dear friend of mine often expresses anti-pug views (namely, that pugs are trouble), which I find to be wholly unfair. Pugs are fine and noble dogs who simply want to make their persons happy. Let it be known that Museum Dogs takes a passionately pro-pug stance. Justice for all pugs!

. . .

Stay tuned; there are more tremendous dogs by Goya to come.

Notes ___________________________________________ 1. Colta Ives and Susan Alyson Stein, Goya in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), p. 11,  http://tinyurl.com/m27c4at630.  

2. Jonathan Brown, and Richard G. Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. (Washington, D.C., 1990), pp. 3–5, http://tinyurl.com/nuwop4c. 

3. Brown and Mann, p. 7; Janis A. Tomlinson, ed., Goya: Images of Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 159–161.

Joseph Wright of Derby British, 1734–1797

Head of a Dog (Smaller Italian Sketchbook, leaf 35 recto) 1774–1775 (?) Graphite and touches of gray ink 23.4 x 17.1 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/405757

Study of Two Young Children Folio 19 recto from a sketchbook inscribed “Jo: Wright/Book of Sketches/Feby 1774” 1774 Pen and brown ink over graphite 24.6 x 17.5 cm British Museum http://tinyurl.com/p7ujt53

Today’s post is just a brief coda to the Joseph Wright extravaganza that’s been going on here at Museum Dogs for the last few days. Check out all the fun at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/joseph_wright_of_derby.

Joseph Wright, often known as Joseph Wright of Derby, is best known today for his paintings of dramatically-lit scientific experiments. He spent much of his career, however, as a portraitist, and he also painted landscapes and scenes from contemporary literature. Wright was the first major British artist to make his career outside of London; he mostly hung out in the Midlands, with long stretches in his native Derby and stints in Liverpool and Bath. Erasmus Darwin (Charles’s grandfather), Josiah Wedgwood, and other movers and shakers in the Midlands’ intellectual, artistic, and commercial milieu in the later eighteenth century were among Wrights friends and patrons.  

In addition to being an accomplished painter, Wright was a prolific draftsman, and his contemporaries recognized his skill and inventiveness with drawing. Wright’s 350 surviving drawings demonstrate the time and energy he put into his works on paper, which he did for a variety of reasons: “to hone his skills, record his observations, test his memory, explore compositions for paintings, and create independent works of art.”[1]

Wright spent 1773–1775 years in Italy, where he sketched architecture, antiquities, and Italian street life. His wife, Ann, went with him, and it was in Rome that their first child, Anna Romana, was born. The artistic focus of the trip was drawing; Wright documented on paper the Italian landscape, classical ruins and architectural details, classical sculpture, details from paintings, Mount Vesuvius, fireworks displays, subtleties of skies and clouds, people on the street, his daughter Romana, and even a dog and a cat. Drawings in one sketchbook are inscribed ‘memy ,’ “indicating that they were observed on the spot but drawn afterward, in keeping with the practice urged by [Joshua] Reynolds.”[2]

Today’s drawings are among those that Wright made while in Italy. Head of a Dog comes from the Smaller Italian Sketchbook (now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which contains 43 drawings on 44 leaves. Inscribed in graphite on the inside the front cover is “41 [sic] sketches/ By Joseph Wright of Derby” the inside back cover reads, in pencil, "Book of Original/ Drawings by Joseph/ Wright of Derby/ 1774–5." The study of two young children and a dog is from another sketchbook, now in the collection of the British Museum. The sketchbook bound in paper is inscribed on the front cover “Jo: Wright/Book of Sketches/Feby 1774” and, upside down “XII.” It contains 46 leaves drawn on the recto (right-hand page) or on both sides. Most sketches are in graphite or pen and brown ink over graphite; others are in brush and grey ink over graphite, black chalk, pen and grey ink over graphite, or pen and brown ink with grey wash over graphite.[3] Take a look at all the drawings from the sketchbooks at http://tinyurl.com/mazyw8r and http://tinyurl.com/p7ujt53.

Head of a Dog is a quick but sensitive sketch of an Italian dog who crossed Wright’s path. Was she a street dog? The dog of a friend? Her identity and life circumstances are lost to the mists of time, but her calm visage is forever preserved in Wright’s sketchbook. She looks like maybe some sort of retriever or collie type. I’d like to think that this dog had befriended Wright, and he was so taken with her canine charms that he just had to draw her.

The dog in Study of Two Young Children is a funny little beast. The floppy-eared pup, coddled by the one kiddo, snarls at the other one who reaches out to pat him. GO AWAY, KID, YOU BOTHER ME. Toddlers and little dogs seldom mix well—the poor motor skills of the former and the often defensive dispositions of the latter can result in a wigged-out dog and a bitten child. I hope the models for the sketch got along with each other.

. . .

As previous posts on Wright have said, he doted on his children and let them have the run of the house, even the art room. There is also compelling evidence that the Wright household included at least one dog. Ergo, it stands to reason that Wright was fond of dogs and also gave them great freedom around the house. A story, possibly apocryphal, attests not only to Wright’s skill as a portraitist but also to a congenial attitude toward dogs. A sitter for a portrait, Joseph Sikes, had come to Wright’s house to check in on the painting’s progress:  

A remarkable proof of the success of the artist in giving to canvas face and figure, was afforded by a favorite little terrier dog of the late Mr. Sikes's unconsciously accompanying him into . . . [Wright's art room], upon the floor of which, in a very unfinished state, were arranged, with many others . . . [portraits of Sikes and his wife], the delightful sagacity of that interesting class of animals quickly displaying itself by the attentive survey of the picture, and by the most lively emotions of gratification, to the extent even of actually licking the canvas. The alarm and astonishment, however, so naturally felt by Mr. Sikes from this honest though uncourteous intruder, was strongly reproved by Mr. Wright, as the most unprecedented and unflattering [i.e., without flattery] respect he could have received; adding, that if the finish of the painting was as perfect as the compliment of the dog, his highest ambition must be exceeded . . .[4]

The good opinion of a dog is high praise indeed!

Stories of dogs reacting to a painting as if its subject were alive in the material world—used to illustrate an artist’s skill—might be a theme throughout the history of art. An incident similar to Wright’s happened to Thomas Gainsborough (a noted dog fancier): he had done a painting of a friend’s dogs, and one of the subjects barked at her own portrait (http://tinyurl.com/kfo59b6).

Yay for canine art critics!

 Notes _________________________________________

1. Elizabeth E. Barker, “Joseph Wright's Pastel Portrait of a Woman, Part I: A Survey of the Drawings of Joseph Wright,” Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 44 (2009), pp. 91, http://tinyurl.com/nwnchsf.

2. Barker, p. 93.

3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Smaller Italian Sketchbook (containing 43 drawings on 44 leaves),” object description,  www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/362089; British Museum, “Sketch-book/drawing,” object description,  http://tinyurl.com/p7ujt53.

Joseph Wright of Derby British, 1734–1797 The Rev. and Mrs. Thomas Gisborne, of Yoxhall Lodge, Leicestershire 1786 Oil on canvas 185.4 x 152.4 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection http://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1665711

One more painting by Joseph Wright. He is so interesting and his work is so cool that Museum Dogs just coun’t help but go on a binge of his stuff. Read a bio of Wright and check out more of his dogs at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/joseph_wright_of_derby. Today’s painting is a portrait of an influential man of his time and one of Wright’s friends in Derby. 

Thomas Gisborne was born into a fairly wealthy family in Derbyshire in 1758. He graduted from St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he had befriended William Wilberforce and Thomas Babington. Gisborne was something of a prodigy at college and was expected to go on to a great public career. He turned down a seat in parliament, and in 1783 he was ordained. That year he also became curate of Barton-under-Needwood  and inherited the family estate of Yoxall Lodge, Staffordshire. The next year he married Mary Babington (1760–1848), Thomas Babington’s sister, and they had six sons and two daughters. Gisborne died in 1846 at the age of 87.[1]

Gisborne, his brother-in-law Thomas Babington, and his college pal William Wilberforce were at the forefront of the antislavery movement in Britain. They were the central figures in the Clapham Sect, a group of Evangelical Anglicans who supported the abolition of slavery, missionary work, social reform, philanthropy, and moral values. (At least one scholar cites the Clapham Sect as being instrumental in the development of Victorian morality in the nineteenth century.) Gisborne wrote a number of influential books on moral and spiritual matters, poetry, and science, including An Enquiry into the Duties of the Female Sex (1797) and two books condemning science-based geology in favor of a biblical approach to the subject. His writings are readily available on the internet: http://tinyurl.com/qxnwoyc. Gisborne was was also an amateur artist and botanist, sincerely interested in natural history and ornithology.[2]  

One of Gisborne’s friends was William Gilpin, champion of the picturesque style in art and literature and a clergyman of quite a different stripe than Gisborne.[3] Gilpin wrote to a friend in 1792 that Gisborne

“is an ingenious man; & of so much simplicity of character, that he takes with me exceedingly. You can enter his mind without lock or key. He is a man of considerable fortune; but went into orders, not with any view of preferment, but merely, as it appears to me, to have a better pretence to be serious . . .”[4]

Gilpin probably meant his last comment as a compliment (as in, Gisborne chose serious intellectual and spiritual pursuits over an easy life or a political career), but to modern sensibilities, it does have a somewhat snarky undertone (as in Gisborne chose to be a clergyman because he thought it gave him more gravitas). Harriet, Countess Granville, encountered Gisborne at a house party and was much more flip about him; she descibed the reverend as looking like “an itinerant preacher, with eyes that squint inward, and a mouth that constantly grins outward, and a head combed . . . comme un artichaut renversé [like an upside-down artichoke].”  HAH! She goes on to say in the letter, however, that the gentlemen of the party—presumably including Gisborne—were a lot of fun, cracking jokes and laughing.[5] (Countess Granville’s letters are fun and well worth reading; the lady sounds like she was a real gas.)

Joseph Wright was a good friends with Gisborne, and he painted a number of pictures for him. They first met in 1777 when Wright was commissioned to paint Gisborne in his academic robes. In 1786, Wright made the the double portrait of the Gisbornes and a pair of landscapes. Two years later, Gisborne commisioned Wright to paint one of his famous views of Mount Vesuvius erupting (Wright made dozens of versions of that scene). Wright gave Gisborne a number of other paintings and drawings over the years as well, including a self-portrait.  One scholar cites Wright’s friendship with Gisborne as “one of the bright spots in a melancholy life”—meaning Wright’s life. Whether or not that assessment is accurate, the two men had a really solid friendship. They would even go sketching (both at Yoxall Lodge and elsewhere; in 1793, they went on a sketching tour of the Lake District) and play flute duets together.[6] A bromance for the ages!

Wright made the double portrait of the Gisbornes two years after the couple married, when Thomas was twenty-eight and Mary was twenty-six. The portfolio in Gisborne’s lap is a nod to his artistic pursuits. He wears sober, clerical black that stands out against his wife’s leaf-green dress. She rather blends in with the landscape, obviously supportive of and important to her husband but also decidedly secondary. She holds a green umbrella that covers both of them, which calls to mind something about wifely duties and nurturing, protective love. They look like a very happy and well-suited couple, and by all accounts they were intelligent and kind people. Still, I can’t help but think that they look kind of insufferable—overly goody-goody in a smug sort of way.  

Bringing some much-needed canine realness to the scene is a fine greyhound. She probably underscores the theme of fidelity (in this case, marital), which is appropriate for the painting. Symbolism aside, she is a lovely dog with a soft tan coat. She looks up at Mary with gentle admiration (perhaps reflecting Thomas’s appreciation for his wife) and a subtle plea for attention. HELLO I AM HERE I WOULD APPRECIATE SOME PATS IF YOU ARE INCLINED TO GIVE THEM AND MAYBE A TREAT IF IT ISN’T TOO MUCH TROUBLE DON’T GO OUT OF YOUR WAY BUT I WILL JUST STAND HERE IN CASE YOU WANT TO PAT ME. 

Notes ________________________________ 1. Wikipedia, “Thomas Gisborne,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gisborne.

2. Wikipedia, “Thomas Gisborne”; “Clapham Sect,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Sect; Christie’s, “Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A. (Derby 1734–1797); View in Dovedale, Derbyshire; and View of the  Convent of San Cosimato and Part of the  Claudian Aquaduct Near Vicovaro in the Roman Campagna,” Lot 41, Sale 7413, Important Old Master and British Pictures (London: July 5, 2007), http://tinyurl.com/l9kezw4.

3. Austenonly (blog), “Jane Austen’s People: Thomas Gisborne,” blog post (December 8, 2009), http://tinyurl.com/nyd9yat. 

4. Quoted in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 107, no. 1 (1965), p. 60.

5. Harriet, Countess Granville, to Lady G. Morpeth, October 31, 1811, in Letters of Harriet, Countess Granville, 1810–1845, Volume 1, F. Leveson Gower, ed. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1894), p. 27, https://archive.org/details/cu31924088004175.

Joseph Wright of Derby British, 1734–1797

John Whetham of Kirklington about 1779–1780 Oil on canvas 127 x 101.6 cm The J. Paul Getty Museum www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/765/joseph-wright-of-derby-john-whetham-of-kirklington-english-about-1779-1780/

Museum Dogs has been on a Joseph Wright kick for the last few days, and rightly so—the man painted some excellent dogs. (Read a bio of Wright and check out more of his dogs at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/joseph_wright_of_derby), Today’s painting, which was commissioned by John Whetham as part of a male bonding experience, features a particularly fine example of dogkind.  

John Whetham was born in 1732 to Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Whetham and Mary Thompson. Thomas Whetham had purchased the Manor at Kirklington, Nottinghamshire, in the 1730s, and when he died in the early 1750s, the estate went to John, who had recently graduated from Trinity College, Oxford. Whetham served as the High Sheriff of Nottingham (!) in 1759–1760, and went on to marry Elizabeth Chadwick in 1769. They had no children. His only sibling, his sister Georgiana, married Thomas Willoughby, later 4th Lord Middleton (1728–1781) a year later.[1]

Whetham got to be good pals with his brother-in-law, Lord Middleton. So much so that they and a mutual friend, Robert Holden (1722–1808) decided to get portraits painted—one plus two copies apiece—and share them so that each man had a set of paintings of himself and his two buddies. Middleton had George Romney do his portrait, which depicts him in his splendid peer's robes. Romney painted a smaller version of Middleton's portrait for Holden. Whetham and Holden had Joseph Wright make their portraits. I can't find an image of Holden’s, but it, apparently, depicts him sitting down indoors. There is no record of any other versions of Holden’s portrait.[2] 

Wright made two full-sized versions of his portrait of Whetham: the one meant for Whetham himself, now in the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum and featured here;  and another, without the dog, for Holden, which was sold at auction in 2011. Wright also made a small oval version of the Whetham portrait (with or without the dog, I do not know) for Middleton, but it has not been found.[3]

Whetham died in August 1781, before the bill for Wright’s portraits had been settled. His friend Holden recorded in his diary on April 19, 1782, that he ‘Went down to Mr. Wright to settle about poor W’s picture.’ (I do not know which version.) Whetham’s widow Elizabeth ended up paying for the painting; Holden later noted that “Mrs. Whetham has quite out-manoeuvr’d us” with that move. Holden wrote a few months later that ‘Mr. Wright breakfasted and fix'd poor Whetham's picture.”[4]

In the painting, Whetham stands against a rocky outcropping—a dashing, rugged outdoor setting that contrasts considerably with more staid portraits of his buddies. He wears a snazzy outfit as well: a green velvet suit trimmed in fur, with a matching hat, a fur sash, and a mustard yellow waistcoat. According the J. Paul Getty Museum, “This costume, unusual for an Englishman, is a loose adaptation of a Hungarian hussar's military dress. Worn by John Whetham for a ball in 1779, this type of masquerade dress was also fashionable for portraits at the time, both because it forwarded the social aspirations of the English aristocracy and because it was timeless, outlasting changing styles.”[5]

The black fur trim of Whetham’s coat and hat is echoed by the black fur of his handsome dog friend. The description of the painting on the J. Paul Getty Museum’s website identifies the dog as a border collie, but our canine hero is far too big for that breed. He looks much more like a black-and-white Newfoundland. Not only are they hearty, strong dogs, but Newfoundlands are also known to be sweet-tempered, docile, and patient. Whetham could not have picked a better dog compatriot! In the painting, he puts a companionable arm around the Noof, who looks up at his person with relaxed affection. His expression seems to say YEP, MY PERSON IS A PRETTY GOOD GUY AND I AM GLAD TO LOOK AFTER HIM. WE TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. I DUNNO ABOUT ALL THAT FUR HE IS WEARING, THOUGH. LEAVE THE FUR TO US ANIMALS. WE ARE THE PROS. Regardless of how Whetham views their relationship, it is clear from the painting that the Noof definitely considers it to be an equal partnership.

Notes _______________________________ 1. John Burke and John Bernard Burke, A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 3 (London: Henry Colburn, 1850), p. 311; Christie’s, “Portrait of John Whetham (1731–1781), of Kirklington, Three-Quarter-Length, in a Bottle-Green Fur-Lined jacket, Yellow Waistcoat and Fur Hat, a Spear in His Left Hand, in a Rocky Landscape,” Lot 27, Sale 7980, Old Master and British Paintings (July 5, 2011), London, http://tinyurl.com/o9echmk.

2. Christie’s, 2011.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

Joseph Wright British, 1734–1797 Anna Romana Wright c. 1776–1777 Oil on canvas 76.3 x 63.5 cm Private Collection

Museum Dogs is pleased to bring another painting by Joseph Wright, whose work has been featured here for the last few days: http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/joseph_wright_of_derby. So far, the dogs in his paintings have been very cute, but today’s painting features not only an adorable dog but also a very cute human!

The human subject of the painting is Joseph Wright’s eldest child, Anna Romana. Wright’s wife Ann (called Nancy) was pregnant when they went off to Rome in 1773, and it was in that city that the child was born on June 24, 1774 and for which she was named. Wright was thrilled with the addition to his family. He wrote from Rome in August 1774, “. . . my dear Nancy was safely delivered of a fine little wench, who is now seven weeks old, hearty and bonny, I watch with infinite pleasure its infant state, and slow advances to sensibility. I pray God it may prosper, it will make me happy . . .”[1]

Anna Romana apparently lived up to Wright’s hopes. The family returned to England and settled in Bath in 1774 when “Little Pop”—Anna Romana’s nickname—was eighteen months old and learning to walk and talk. When she was a little over two years old, Wright bragged that she could speak “a little English, a little Italan, & a little French.”[2] In a letter to Ozias Humphry (who was also a pal of George Stubbs) in 1775, Wright made sure to include his daughter in the closing: “Mrs. Dowman and Mrs. Wright send their best compliments to you, as does little Pop her ‘Ta.’”[3]

The Wrights would go on to have five more children after Anna Romana, four of whom lived to adulthood: John, Harriet, Maria, and Joseph. A few sources mention Wright’s delight in his children and his indulgent parenting style.[4] As a 1922 biography notes,

. . . Wright would romp with his children and nieces, and in its rooms and passages he played hide-and-seek with them. Not a room in the house was closed to children, and they might even play with whip-tops in rooms where pictures stood stacked against the walls, or play games in the painting room when he was not working there.[5]

Wright made a number of portraits of his beloved children; he painted Anna Romana again in 1795:

Joseph Wright Anna Romana Wright Reading by Candlelight c. 1795 Oil on canvas 75.2 x 62.2 cm National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/91577/

In 1785, Anna Romana married James Cade, a surgeon; Josiah Wedgwood, a patron and friend of Wright’s, gave the newlyweds a dinner service of 150 pieces (!) as a wedding present. The Cades took up residence in the Cade family home in Derby, and they had 13 children together, 11 of whom survived. Anna Romana died in 1837, and James died three years later.[6] There’s an interesting postscript to Anna Romana’s story: In 1841, the Cades’ son John Edward emigrated to Australia with his two children and his 63-year-old  aunt, Anna Romana’s younger sister Harriet. Harriet brought with her paintings and family portraits that she and Anna Romana had inherited from their father and that they had otherwise acqured. Harriet had no children of her own, so the paintings she brought with her to Australia were dispersed among her sister’s descendents there.[7]

Wrigt had a knack for “painting children with affectionate but unsentimental realism,” and Anna Romana Wright is a charming and funny (unfinished) portrait—Wright was obviously completely smitten with his little girl.[8] The rosy-cheeked toddler is realistically unkempt, with messy hair and dirty and dissheveled clothes. She looks quite dismayed by the attentions of a little white hairy dog who jumps up on her.

The LWHD appears to be the same one as in Wright’s 1777 painting _Maria, From Sterne _(and possibly in his 1781 Maria, From Sterne, a Companion to the Picture of Edwin), seen on  Museum Dogs the other day: http://t.co/dXoz0Tc5AU. Even though the dog in the portrait is unfinishd, and little white hairy dogs are often hard to distinguish from one another, the pink nose is a dead giveaway that it is the same dog in the two (or three) paintings—undoubtedly a family pet.  If Wright was as fond of and lenient with his dogs as he was his children, this LWHD was a lucky pup indeed.

The dog jumps up on little Anna in happy greeting and perhaps an invitation to play. Our canine hero’s interest in the tot might be food-related as well: little kids are pretty much constantly sticky with food residue, and they make a good mess at mealtime. Dogs know that where there is a baby or toddler, there is also food for the scrounging!

 Notes ______________________________

1. Quoted in W. Bemrose, “Wright, of Derby. A Biographical Notice,” The Reliquary, vol. 4 (1864–1864), p. 182.

2. Amina Wright, Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2014), p. 21.

3. Solomon Charles Kaines Smith and H. Cheney Bemrose, Wright of Derby (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1922), p. 54.

4. Elizabeth E. Barker, “Documents Relating to Joseph Wright ‘of Derby’ (1734–97),” The Walpole Society, vo. 71 (2009),  p. 157; Wright, p. 21.

5. Smith and Benrose, p. 35.

6. “Historic Mansion Up for Sale in Spondon,” Derby Telegraph (March 23, 2013), http://tinyurl.com/pf8wqrh; Smith and Bemrose, p. 66; Laurie Benson, “A Masterpiece Revealed: Joseph Wright of Derby in Melbourne,” Art Journal of the National Gallery of Victoria, Edition 50 (2011) http://tinyurl.com/oe82hky.

7. Benson, “A Masterpiece Revealed.”

Joseph Wright British, 1734–1797

Maria, from Sterne 1777 Oil on canvas 100.3 x 125.7 cm Private Collection

Maria, from Sterne, a Companion to the Picture of Edwin 1781 Oil on canvas 160 x 115.6 cm Derby Art Gallery, Derby, UK

We here at Museum Dogs cannot resist a Little White Hairy Dog. Today we have two (perhaps the same dog) by the eighteenth-century English painter Joseph Wright, whose work (and a bio) was featured in the previous post, http://tinyurl.com/n7qwgxe.

Wright lived and worked during an era of great advancements in science, industry, and art, and he hobnobbed with and painted for some of the great minds in those fields. He is probably best known for his dramatically candlelit paintings of scientific experiments, but he worked in many other genres, including scenes of historical and literary characters. His two paintings of the character Maria from the popular and influential novel A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy are some of the best examples.

The English novelist Laurence Sterne published A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy in 1768, as something of a sequel to his Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (published in nine volumes form 1759–1767). The Reverend Mr. Yorick, a minor character in Tristram Shandy, is the narrator of A Sentimental Journey, which recounts Yorick's experiences on the Grand Tour in France and Italy. It, as the title indicates, a novel in the sentimental style. Instead of focusing on academic learning, strict reason, and impersonal objectivity, sentimental literature emphasized emotions, personal tastes, manners, and feelings. It is a genre particularly associated with the second half of the eighteenth century, but the effects of sentimentalism continued to be felt in literature into the nineteenth.  A Sentimental Journey also kicked off a vogue for travel writing, a genre that dominated the literary scene in the later eighteenth century.[1]

The character of Maria first appeared in Tristram Shandy.  In that book, Tristram encountered Maria during his travels in France. She was a beautiful young woman who had been jilted by her lover and subsequently went mad from despair. When Tristram came upon her, she was weeping and distractedly tootling a hymn on a flute, with a pet goat as her only companion. He was very much affected by his encounter with the disturbed Maria. In A Sentimental Journey, Yorick makes it a point to visit Maria because of his friend Tristram's report of her. When Yorick finds her, Maria has recovered somewhat from madness but is still overcome with grief. She tells him that she is even more upset because her father had recently died (of a broken heart over her mental disturbance) and her pet goat had run away. Her companion now is a little dog, Silvio, whom she keeps tethered to her with a string out of fear that he--like her lover, father, and goat—will also abandon her. Yorick is so moved by Maria's plight that he starts to weep. He asks Maria if she remembers Tristram Shandy. She says she does because of is interest in her and also because her goat had stolen his handkerchief. She was able to retrieve it from the goat and kept it with her ever since. She goes on to tell Yorick about a "Grand Tour" she herself made to Rome and around Italy and back, on foot, still a bit crazed, and subsisting only on the generosity of others. Yorick, again moved, exclaims that he would gladly care for her and her little dog, and he recommences weeping. When the two recover from their crying, they walk back to town and part ways.

Read the whole episode in chapters 64 through 66 of A Sentimental Journey, available online at www.bartleby.com/303/1/64.html. Despite all the sentiment (or maybe because of it), it’s really quite funny. Maria’s scene in Tristram Shandy is in volume 3, chapter 83, http://tinyurl.com/potdcxf. 

A Sentimental Journey was a wildly popular book. Seriously, everyone read it. (For instance, Abigail Adams references it—Maria, specifically—in one of her letters. She also makes a reference to Tristram Shandy.[2]) The character of Maria in particular caught the contemporary imagination. Her story was the most widely excerpted and illustrated scene from any of Sterne's novels. In addition to numerous book illustrations, the image of “Poor Maria” appeared everywhere—portraits of fashionable women as her, paintings like Wright's, and all manner of decorative household and personal items. Wedgwood produced a pottery cameo that decorated many of his wares. Other writers even published new stories about her, mostly speculating on her sad end.[3] Fan fiction is not a new concept!

Sterne describes Maria as if she were a picture:

I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar.  She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand: a small brook ran at the foot of the tree. . . . She was dress’d in white, [and] her hair hung loose . . . a pale green ribband . . . fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe. Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she had kept tied by a string to her girdle: as I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string. “Thou shalt not leave me, Sylvio,” said she.[4]

Indeed, her pose is almost identical to that of Weeping Dacia, a Roman bas relief that was, in eighteenth-century England, one of the most easily recognizable pieces of classical art and a must-see piece on the Grand Tour.[5] Here is a drawing of it done in the mid-eighteenth century:

William Chambers British, 1723–1796 Weeping Dacia mid-18th century Pen and ink, pencil with grey and brown washes Victoria and Albert Museum, London http://tinyurl.com/qcwadh8

Weeping Dacia is also featured down front and just left of center (leaning against The Dying Gaul), in Giovanni Paolo Panini's Ancient Rome, now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://tinyurl.com/k7kplwp. 

Maria's pose––and as in Wright's paintings, her classical clothing––calls to mind a famous antiquity that Yorick will no doubt go on to see in Rome. She is also something  of a tourist attraction herself. She is crazy and beautiful (the original "hot mess"), and Yorick makes it a point to see her because of her potential to provide him an emotional thrill. His  visit with her calls to mind both sex tourism on the Continent (it was a thing even then)  and the fad for touring insane asylums. Despite Yorick's chaste intentions, his interaction with her definitely has sexual overtones. Also, Maria is described as having undone clothing and hair, which is a marker of loose moral character. Wright's paintings are very decorous, but other artists often gave Maria sexily disarrayed and revealing clothes.[6]

Maria, From Sterne (1777) Wright made two paintings depicting Sterne’s Maria. He made the first in 1777, not long after moving to Bath after a brief stint in Derby. He had just met the poet William Hayley, who would become one of Wright’s closest friends and confidants; no doubt Hayley advised him paint characters from literature and history—“improving” and uplifting subjects that would show Wright to be a serious artist and that were also popular with the art buying audience.[7] Wright’s 1777 Maria—which had a companion painting of another scene from A Sentimental Journey, The Captive—faithfully follows Sterne’s description, excerpted above. The horizontal format of the painting allowed Wright to include substantial landscape as a background—an interest he had acquired after his trip to Rome a few years before. 

The best feature of the painting by far, however, is the LITTLE WHITE HAIRY DOG! Many other artists made Silvio a spaniel in their paintings, but Wright chose to make him a fluffy bichon or Bolognese—an adorable choice. The little dog, with tousled silky white fur and a pink nose, lays at Maria’s feet, resting his head and a consoling paw on her leg. He looks up at her with emotive eyes; he is obviously very concerned about his person, and the fact that she is sad makes him sad too. OH PERSON PLEASE DO NOT BE SAD IT WILL BE OK I AM HERE WE ARE FRIENDS AND I AM CUTE. A dog is a true and loyal companion, far better than the stupid dude over whom she is pining, and more suitable than her previous pet, a goat. (No offence to goats. Goats are great, just difficult.) Don’t worry, Maria; Silvio the dog will save the day!

At least one scholar has speculated that the dog who served as the model for Silvio was an actual dog—Wright’s own family pet, even. Silvio is painted with lots of expressive details that indicate a specific personality known to Wright. And, importantly, an identical dog is a very prominent feature in a portrait Wright made of his daughter.[8] Stay tuned for that painting in the next Museum Dogs post!

Maria, from Sterne, a Companion to the Picture of Edwin (1781) Wright made another painting of Maria from A Sentimental Journey in 1781. It was a companion piece for a painting Wright had done in 1777–1778 of the character Edwin from the then-recently published epic poem by James Beattie, Minstrel, or the Progress of Genius. The painting depicts Edwin the shepherd boy, who was inspired to create poetry and music by the beauty of nature, in a state of melancholy (http://tinyurl.com/m4kgalp). Wright had a lot at stake in the painting, for it was to be among his first submissions o the Royal Academy. It was very well received at the 1778 exhibition. A few years later, he painted Maria to accompany Edwin. Maria's pose mirrors that of the shepherd boy, as does her melancholy.[9] Like in the 1777 painting, Wright closely follows Sterne's physical description of Maria. Mary Bassano, a woman from Derby, is said to have been the model for the painting.[10]

Once again, Maria’s canine companion Silvio is a Little White Hairy Dog—perhaps the same one as in the 1777 painting. He peeps out from behind Maria’s skirt and gazes up at his person, who is sad and distracted. Depression in humans is tough on their dogs; Silvio is probably wondering why his person doesn’t want to play or go for walks any more. Maria really should at least make an effort—some exercise and quality time with a cute and furry animal will help her feel better! The real-life Silvio must have been a Very Good and Patient dog to pose for Wright. I have no doubt that he got lots of pats and treats as a fee for modeling. ACTUALLY I AM A MODEL YES A NUDE MODEL BUT THEN DOGS ARE ALWAYS NUDE.

. . .

Don’t go away, folks—Wright’s amazing Little White Hairy Dog will return in the next post!  

 Notes ______________________________

1. Wikipedia, "A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sentimental_Journey_Through_France_and_Italy; Wikipedia, "Sentimental novel," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentimental_novel, both accessed February 6, 2015.

2. Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 8 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007), pp. 5, 6 note, 226, 227 note, http://tinyurl.com/k7mq7zz.

3. Susan Lamb, Bringing Travel Home to England: Tourism, Gender, and Imaginative Literature in the Eighteenth Century (Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 2009)., p. 165.

4. Laurence Stern, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (first ed. 1768; New York: P.F. Collier and Son, 1917), chapter 64, www.bartleby.com/303/1/64.html.

5. Lamb, pp. 173, 176–177.

6. Amanda Gilroy, Romantic Geographies: Discourses of Travel, 1775–1844 (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 111; Lamb, p. 167; Amina Wright, Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2014), pp. 80–81

7. "Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond," exhibition announcement, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (March 2014), http://tinyurl.com/o3qbvqt; Wright, pp. 80–81.

8. Wright, pp. 80–81.

9. Wright, p. 83.

Joseph Wright British, 1734–1797

The Corinthian Maid 1782–1784 Oil on canvas 106.3 x 130.8 cm On view in Gallery 61, main level National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.61396.html

Penelope Unraveling Her Web 1783–1784 Oil on canvas 106 x 131.4 cm The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/809/

Apologies for further delays in posting this week. The dogs will, I hope, be worth the wait.

Today’s paintings were done by Joseph Wright, an artist who lived and worked at an exciting time for both art and science, and who hobnobbed with some very interesting people. He also painted some Very Good Dogs, which is of course his most important achievement.

Joseph Wright Joseph Wright was born in Derby in the East Midlands of England. He trained as a portraitist with Thomas Hudson in London from 1751 to 1753, returned to Darby, then took more artistic training with Hudson from 1756 to 1757. From the late 1760s to the mid 1770s, Wright moved around a bit, making a portrait-painting tour of the East Midlands, doing a stint in Liverpool, spending a couple of years in Rome and other Italian cities, and trying (unsuccessfully) for two years to take Gainsborough's place—after Gainsborough went to London—as the top portraitist in Bath.  Otherwise, Wright spent most of his career in Derby. In fact, he was the first major English painter to make his career outside of London. Wright's professional connection to his hometown is perhaps partly why he is often known as Joseph Wright of Derby.[1]

Primarily a portraitist throughout much of his career, in the mid-1760s, Wright began the work for which he is best known—paintings, mostly of scientific experiments, dramatically illuminated by candlelight. His trip to Rome was also big influence on his painting; after his return, he switched from scientific themes to landscapes and subjects from classical and contemporary literature. In 1781, Wright became an associate of the Royal Academy, but he was snubbed for a full academicianship two years later. He resigned from the Royal Academy altogether, and, like Gainsborough before him, put on his own exhibitions of his works.[2]

Wright married Ann Swift in 1773 (the same year he went off to Rome; she went too), and they had six children. From early middle age, he was plagued by chronic illness and depression that often prevented him from working for long stretches of time. Ann died in 1790; afflicted with a variety of ailments, Wright died in 1797.[3]

The Lunar Society The social circle in which Wright moved and worked was mostly middle-class and provincial (as opposed to London high society), and he was also chummy with some of the most influential thinkers and doers of the day--Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of the famous Charles and an important figure in his own right), Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestly, Richard Arkwright, and other people associated with the Lunar Society. Local and regional philosophical groups had spring up around England in the later eighteenth century, and the Lunar Society was one of the most notable. (Another was Darwin's Derby Philosophical Society, which had some membership overlap with the Lunar Society.) Wright was interested in science, particularly the behavior of light, technical matters, and natural philosophy, so he fit right in with the Lunar Society folks. And his paintings of scientific experiments in particular captured the excitement of discovery and the advancement of knowledge that was going on at the time. Darwin and Wedgwood were at the center of the Midlands intellectual renaissance; the former was Wright's physician, and the latter was one of his patrons.[4]

(Another Museum Dogs alum and perhaps the greatest dog portraitist ever, George Stubbs, hung around with the Midlands intelligentsia. He, too, knew Darwin and painted for Wedgwood; no doubt Stubbs and Wright knew each other. For more about Stubbs, Darwin, and Wedgwood, check out the post at http://tinyurl.com/mqgvu36.)

Josiah Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood commissioned the two paintings being featured today. He was a pioneer of pottery manufacturing, and he was a big wheel in the world of commerce. He also was interested in the art and the intersection of utility, commercial value, and aesthetic value. The two paintings, The Corinthian Maid and Penelope Unravelling her Web by Lamplight, each celebrate a craft that, by the eighteenth century, had become a very important industry in the Midlands--pottery and spinning. Wedgwood wanted to depict what had become mechanical arts in allegorical terms, mostly in order to please upper class patrons, particularly women. The paintings, then, became tributes to female loyalty, industry, and domestic virtue. Wedgwood had a lot of input into the paintings' composition, details, and execution. Wright also looked to friends, like Erasmus Darwin and the poet William Hayley, and to other artists, including William Blake and George Romney, for advice on the works.[5]

The Corinthian Maid The scene in the painting is from the legend of the origin of painting, told originally by Pliny and recounted in verse form by Wright's friend the poet William Hayley. The basic story goes like so: Dibutade, the daughter of a Corinthian potter, Butades, wanted to have a record of her lover, who was about to leave the country. While he was sleeping, she traced the outline of his shadow on the wall. After he left, her father filled in the outline with clay, made a relief, baked it, and voila—a portrait. The place of pottery in the beginnings of painting (and by association, art in general) was certainly an apt theme for Wedgwood to be interested in. "Wedgwood’s own fired-clay vessels, decorated with low reliefs, would have been seen by an eighteenth-century audience as the aesthetic descendants of this ancient Greek maiden’s attempt to preserve her beloved’s profile." Also, pottery plays a prominent role in the picture.[6]

The main action of the painting is Dibutade carefully tracing her lover's profile while the man sleeps. The light causing the important shadow is hidden behind a drapery in the foreground; Wright specialized in dramatic and inventive lighting effects. Two big earthenware vases flank the lovers, and a kiln and pottery making operation is seen through the doorway at the right.

The most important feature of the painting, however, is the greyhound laying on the floor next to the man. Dogs are always important as dogs in paintings, and this one is also meant to underscore the theme of fidelity and devotion. The dog is very similar in pose and overall appearance to one in a painting by George Stubbs, The Labourers:

George Stubbs British, 1724–1806 The Labourers 1781 Enamel on Wedgwood biscuit earthenware/'69.9 x 91.4 cm Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection http://collections.britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1667172 

Stubbs's painting, like Wright's, was commissioned by Wedgwood, so Wright would likely have been familiar with it. If you are going to copy a dog, a dog by Stubbs is a good one to choose. 

Wright's greyhound is a lovely light grey with white paws and a faint white snip on his forehead. He is snoozing, but his right eye is open ever so slightly. Either he is sleeping with his eyes open, as dogs often do, or he is drowsily watching Dibutade trace her lover. Our canine hero has a faint smile, so I'm going to guess the latter. WHAT IS THE LADY DOING HUMANS DO THE STRANGEST THINGS BUT THEY ARE OK AS CREATURES GO I LIKE THIS HUMAN SHE IS NICE. The question remains, though, whether Dibutade or the man is the dog's person. Is the dog leaving with the man? If so, Dibutade should make a portrait of the dog, too!

Penelope Unravelling Her Web by Candlelight Wright's depiction of Penelope was commissioned as a companion to The Corinthian Maid. It depicts another classical scene, one from  Homer's Odyssey. Penelope, waiting for her husband Odysseus to come home after years away, was beset by annoying suitors who claimed that Odysseus was dead and insisted that she marry one of them. She put them off by promising to marry only after she completed a shroud for her father-in-law. She weaved by day, and by night she unraveled her work so that it would never be finished.[7] Wright's painting shows her at that task, winding the threads back into balls while gazing at her sleeping son, Telemachus. Wright thought that a loom was too mundane an object to be included in the painting, so he hid it behind the drapery at the far right. The fabric of the weaving cascades off of it toward Penelope. A statue of her husband Odysseus is silhouetted in the foreground, subtly dominating the scene. Like in its companion painting, the scene is dramatically lit, with the light source hidden--this time by the statue of Odysseus. The statue proved to be worrisome, however.

In painting the statue of Ulysses, Wright had tried to follow the ancients in making their statues naked, 'but being nearly seen in profile, the private parts become too conspicuous, for the chamber of chaste Penelope.' His solution of having Ulysses rest on his bow with his quiver over the offending genitals was hooted down by Hayley, who pointed out that this might well make 'some profane Wag exclaim, "Happy is the man that hath his Quiver full.'[8]

Hah! As we can see, Wright came up with a suitable solution to the problem of the statue's genitals.

Sitting patiently next to Penelope, half hidden in the darkness, is a Very Good spaniel. Like the greyhound in the companion painting, he represents loyalty, in this case, Penelope's to her husband. The spaniel probably is not supposed to be Ulysses's dog Argos, whose story is a very sad one. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argos_(dog)) No, this dog is healthy and well cared for. (Though really, if this dog is loved and treated well, surely Argos could have been, too.) He is trying very hard to stay awake, but he cannot keep his eyes open and his head is starting to get heavy. Still, he refuses to lay down. My own dog does this, choosing to hold out against sleep for as long as he can.  NO NO I AM AWAKE SEE I AM STILL UPRIGHT AND VIGILANT I AM NOT TIRED AT ALL I . . . ZZZZZZ.

. . .

More dogs by Joseph Wright to come!

 Notes _________________________________

1. National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue, "Wright, Joseph," http://tinyurl.com/o3zwprl; Wedgwood Museum, “Joseph Wright, 1734–1797,” http://tinyurl.com/le7xds3; The J. Paul Getty Museum, “Joseph Wright of Derby,” http://tinyurl.com/pc3s7lm; Tate Britain, “Joseph Wright of Derby,” exhibition announcement (1958), http://tinyurl.com/qccjrtp; Leslie Primo, “Joseph Wright of Derby and the Men and Art of the Lunar Society,” lecture summary, www.primoartdiscoverytours.co.uk/fine-art-society-lectures/96. All links accessed February 4, 2015.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue; Primo, lecture summary; Simon Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), p. 22; Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future, 1730–1810 (London: Faber and Faber, 2002), pp. 207–208.

5. Amina Wright, Joseph Wright of Derby: Bath and Beyond (London: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2014), p. 85; Uglow, pp. 573–574.

6. John Hayes, British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue (Washington, D.C., 1992), pp. 344–350; National Gallery of Art, “From the Tour: British and American History Paintings of the 1700s,” www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg61/gg61-61396.html.

7. The J. Paul Getty Museum, "Penelope Unravelling Her Web by Candlelight," object description, www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/809.

Marcus Gheeraerts I Flemish, c. 1520 – c. 1590; Sometimes attributed to Abraham de Bruyn Flemish, 1540–1587 Engravings from Animalium Quadrupedum (Antwerp: Everardus Hoeswinckel, 1583) The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Dogs 21.1 × 8.9 cm www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1904-3648

Six Dogs in a Landscape 20.8 × 8.7 cm www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1904-3649  

Adriaen Collaert Flemish, c. 1560–1618 Engravings from Animalium Quadrupedum (Antwerp: Theodoor Galle, 1595–1633) The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Dogs 12.5 x 18.6 cm www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/RP-P-1905-5228

Nicolaes de Bruyn Flemish, 1571–1656 Nine Dogs, from Animalium Quadrupedum(Antwerp: Ahasuerus van Londerseel, 1594) Engraving 8.9 x 12.9 cm The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/RP-P-1898-A-19997

Museum Dogs is getting a very late start this week. What was supposed to be a quick and easy Monday post—a couple of prints by Abraham de Bruyn, whose work was featured here last Monday (http://tinyurl.com/ncubska)—turned into a bit of a research challenge; the first two engravings of dogs at the top of the post were not by de Bruyn after all, and in the course of figuring out just what was up with the things, I fell into an information hole.

The confusion, however, has been sorted, and a couple more great dog images surfaced in the process. Today’s post follows my research trail, and it kind of gives you an idea of how the sausage is made around here, as it were. (Canine readers: The sausage is strictly metaphorical; this blog contains no actual sausage. Do not try to eat your computer or electronic device. NO ACTUAL SAUSAGE.)

For those of you who don’t have the energy to wade through the weeds of sixteenth-century prints, feel free to skip to the last section, THE DOGS.

On we go . . .

Abraham De Bruyn or Marcus Gheeraerts? The Rijksmuseum entries for the first two dog images cite them as possibly being done by Abraham de Bruyn, but the entry for the title page of the set of prints rejects that attribution (that information I found out only after a great deal of confusion and digging around for an answer). They were instead part of a set of 21 engravings made by Marcus Gheeraerts I, Animalium quadrupedum omnis generis verae et artificiosissimae delineationes, published by Everardus Hoeswinckel in Antwerp in 1583.[1] The British Museum still attributes these prints to de Bruyn.  

See the full set of the Gheeraerts engravings on Wikimedia Commons (http://tinyurl.com/mdlfof8) and on the website of the University of Heidelberg library (http://tinyurl.com/qcyjk8w). They’re pretty cool.

Gheeraerts made a specialty of engraving animals; the examples of his work at the British Museum (http://tinyurl.com/k97blpp) and Rijksmuseum (http://tinyurl.com/nlw94fe) are mostly illustrations of fables and zoological studies. Again, some neat stuff there.

Adriaen Collaert At least two sources mention a book of with the same title as the 1538 book, Animalium quadrupedum omnis generis verae et artificiosissimae delineationes, published in Antwerp around 1580 with a title page and 19 plates engraved by Adriaen Collaert.[2] The identical title but different artist threw me for a loop, but the British Museum solves some of the mystery with a blurb in an object description of a print by Collaert:  

This is the title-page to a series of nineteen plates showing four-legged animals . . . . These prints were first published by Adriaen Collaert in Antwerp around 1597; later republished by Theodoor and Johannes Galle between 1636 and 1677. Several animals on the plates have been copied after the series with the same title by Marcus Gheeraerts, published in Antwerp in 1583 by Eduard van Hoeswinckel. Several copies of this series exist.[3]

The 1538 Gheeraerts/Hoeswinckel book and the 1597 Collaert book are easy to get confused, especially if some of the images are similar.

See all of Collaert’s quadrupeds on the National Gallery of Art’s website (http://tinyurl.com/k3c57zl);  some of the prints and later copies of them on the British Museum’s website, (http://tinyurl.com/nssu8kd), and more of Collaert’s work on the Rijksmuseum website, (http://tinyurl.com/lw38qfd). And Collaert has popped up on Museum Dogs in the past; check out the dogs at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/collaert.

Abraham de Bruyn Although Abraham de Bruyn did not make the animal engravings from 1583, he did produce many images of animals and at least one Animalium Quadrupedum in 1578. An article in the journal Furniture History notes that "engraved series of flowers and animals were . . . important sources of inspiration [for furniture decorations], and artists like Adrian Collaert and Abraham de Bruyn seem to have been much in demand. De Bruyn's Animalium Quadrupedum (1578) contains [a] mixture of real and fabulous animals . . ."[4] The British Museum has 9 of a set of 12 from 1578, possibly published by Hans Liefrinck (http://tinyurl.com/mf7w6em); the Wellcome Library has four (http://tinyurl.com/l62cysg, http://tinyurl.com/ohv4b2t, http://tinyurl.com/m4oy27q, http://tinyurl.com/otuqzov); and two more, including a title plate, are  in the collection of the library of the Commune di Milano (http://tinyurl.com/l9agsao and http://tinyurl.com/kvxyoxa).

The Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, has prints by Abraham de Bruyn from an undated series published by Claes Jansz Visscher (http://tinyurl.com/pble3ko; if the link doesn’t work, do a search on “de bruyn” and the relevant works will come up). The source is, admittedly, dodgy, but apparently the tiger from undated set was used as the basis for design on porcelain (page 40 of the PDF at http://tinyurl.com/kn9d2c7).

Nicolaes de Bruyn Abraham de Bruyn’s nephew Nicolaes de Bruyn also was an engraver, and he, too, made prints of animals. In the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, is a book of hunting scenes—titled Animalium Quadrupedum Venatus in Usum Pictorum Aurifabrorumque Editae—by Nicolaes, published in 1631 and, according to the title page, based on earlier designs by his uncle Abraham (http://tinyurl.com/oa8jczr).

Nicolaes did another series of engravings of animals, published as Animalium Quadrupedum by his brother-in-law Ahasuerus van Londerseel in 1594. The publisher Claes Jansz Visscher put out another edition of the prints in 1621; yet another edition was published by Christoffel van Sichem sometime between 1594 and 1621. In the Visscher edition, there are 12 plates of mammals, 13 of birds, and 13 of fish.[5] Take a look nearly all of the prints—and other works by de Bruyn from 1594—on the Rijksmuseum website (http://tinyurl.com/p5o48qq). The Musée de Flandre, Cassel, has a better impression of the lions print (http://tinyurl.com/olt3ouj).

Nick de Bruyn is another Museum Dogs alum. Take a look at some of his excellent dogs at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/de_bruyn.

Conclusions Sometimes museums’ object records are incorrect, out of date, or not very informative. Searching other museums’ collections for other versions of an artwork is a worthwhile endeavor, even if it pulls you deeper down the rabbit hole.

Sets of zoological prints were very popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A Polish blog, Socjalizacja Introwertyka, has some posts comparing zoological illustrations over the centuries, with some examples by the de Bruyns and Collaert (http://tinyurl.com/l3uhcle). And apparently, the frontispieces for zoological collections sometimes depicted Orpheus charming the animals—like the frontispiece for Abraham de Bruyn set in the Wellcome Library and this example by Justus Saedeler from about 1600 in the library of the Commune di Milano: http://tinyurl.com/knxel7y.

Artists, particularly in the world of printmaking, borrowed and outright copied from each other all the time. Today’s featured engravings of dogs—by three different artists—all look really similar. And among the versions of Animalium Quadrupedum mentioned in this post, just about all of them feature a plate with a rhinoceros, and each rhinoceros is identical or nearly so to Albrecht Dürer’s famous 1515 woodcut of a rhino.

Prints are just the best. During the heyday of prints, engravings, etchings, and woodcuts disseminated images and ideas quickly and to a wide audience. I find that to be really exciting. Folks in sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century Europe had a lot more access to art, science, philosophy, religion, geography, social sciences, moralizing stories, and smut than we snobby moderns often realize. Hurrah for prints!

THE DOGS There are plenty of great dogs to be found in the works mentioned and linked to in this post. A few of them, however, stand out, and those are today’s Museum Dogs.

The two engravings by Gheeraerts depict dogs hanging out and doing typical dog things in an outdoor setting, with a town in the distance.

In the first print, at left, a pair of greyhounds sniff each other mouths as dogs often do in greeting. The male to the right raises what is probably supposed to be a questioning paw, but Gheeraerts didn’t get the movement quite right. Maybe the dog is supposed to be pawing the other in a more aggressive move; sometimes the mutual face sniffing can result in snarling and ill-will. Will these dogs get along? Potential drama! Laying under the front legs of the one greyhound is a funny little spaniel. She seems to be very pleased with herself, and she gives the viewer a haughty, challenging look. In the middle is a dog of indeterminate breed but dignified bearing. The cropped ears indicate a hunting dog, and indeed, the serious fellow looks like a formidable opponent to the fiercest game. The spaniely-type dog to his right reaches a leg up for an ear scratch. Her expression is quite dopey, but then, dogs do seem to zone out a little when scratching. The dog at the far right saunters up to his itchy companion and appears to be about to greet her—a butt sniff is imminent.

At the left of the second print by Gheeraerts, a pair of dogs (is one a greyhound?) appear to be having a chat. The one on the right lays with her front paws crossed—always a charming dog pose. See? Human society changes, but dogs are always dogs. And good on Gheeraerts for being so observant of dog behavior. To the right, four more dogs—two hounds of some sort and two greyhounds—sit around with serious expressions and show off their musculature. The two facing the viewer look like very grumpy characters. They needs some extra pats and treats to loosen them up a bit! The greyhound with her back to the viewer, however, looks to be more contemplative than moody. She and the dog to her right have found more interesting things to focus on in the background. Down front, a Little Hairy Dog tells the world that He Is Here and He Has A  Lot To Say. He appears to be barking at nothing in particular, but I am sure that he is so tough and so important that he does not need a reason. RAFF RAFF RAFF! Meanwhile, a goofy little dog poops nearby. Dogs poop! Everyone poops! Again, good on Gheeraerts for staying true to life.

I really like the dogs in the print by Collaert. These dogs, too, are just hanging around outdoors with a town in the background. Notice that the dog at the far left is identical to the middle dog in the first Gheeraerts print, just reversed. See? These artists totally copied from each other all the time. In this case, the copy dog is the odd one out; the other two are distinctive types (even though dog breeds as we know them today had not been codified in the sixteenth century). The one in the middle is a ringer for a Brittany spaniel or some sort of long-haired pointer, with the distinctive head coloring and dark spots on his white coat. He is a happy fellow, and he looks out at the viewer with an expression that says “let’s be friends!” and “let’s play!” His retrieverish/mutt companion is much more serious, with a melancholy mien. She is probably a good and patient dog, though, quiet and loyal. She and the muscular, indeterminate dog at left exchange shy glances, and he ever so slightly raises a curious paw. Is doggy romance in the air?

Nicolaes de Bruyn’s print is full of canine activity. Tussling! Humping! Snuffling the ground! The five dogs engaged in those pursuits are of no distinct type; their actions are the more important feature. The tussling dogs appear to be friendly enough. Dog play can be pretty rough; I hope those two are getting along OK. The female in the copulating pair is very unimpressed by the proceedings, and the male is appropriately sheepish. The two vaguely greyhoundy dogs just sit or stand and stare into space, both looking a little dazed. My favorite is the dark-colored wirehaired pointer type giving the viewer a bit of coy side-eye, as if a little embarrassed by the copulating dogs but with an air of “eh, what can you do?” This dog is a wise soul and no doubt a good friend to his human. Rounding out the collection is the Little Hairy Dog with a lion cut at the upper right. Little Hairy Dogs are a favorite at this blog, and the lion cut—which appears in a lot of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century prints, as a turn through the Museum Dog archive demonstrates—never fails to be funny. I’m not sure if a dog would hate having a lion cut (I AM NOT A CAT DO NOT MAKE ME INTO A CAT NOT EVEN A BIG ONE), not care, or be pleased to look as fierce as he feels.

 Notes ___________________________

1. Rijksmuseum, “Album of four-footed animals,” object entry, http://tinyurl.com/q7lsvv6.

2. General Catalogue (No. 298): Periodicals, Standard-Works, Scarce and Valuable Works of the Last Four Centuries (The Hague: Martius Nijhoff, 1899), p. 82; Bulletin de la Librarie Damascène Morgand, vol. 9 (Paris: 1900–1901), pp. 104–105, http://tinyurl.com/ln9w8xp.

3. British Museum, “Animalium Quadrupedum,” object description, http://tinyurl.com/l24j4dn.

4. Furniture History, vol. 21 (1985), p. 71.

Léon Davent French, active 1540–1556, after Luca Penni Italian, 1500/1504–1556 Capital Sins series 1547 Etchings and engravings British Museum

Gula (Gluttony) 31.6 x 46.5 cm http://tinyurl.com/l7bp9jq

Detail from Gula 27.0 x 29.5 cm http://tinyurl.com/l5bth2y

Detail from Gula 9.9 cm diameter http://tinyurl.com/mrwfdav

Detail from Avaritia (Avarice) 10 cm diameter http://tinyurl.com/q7bjfrd

Invidia (Envy) 31.8 x 46.2 cm http://tinyurl.com/p7dd5vo

Detail from Invidia 27.0 x 29.9 cm http://tinyurl.com/mpfbll3

Museum Dogs is finishing out the week with some allegorical dogs in more etchings by Léon Davent and Luca Penni. (Check out Davent’s previous work at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/Leon-Davent and Penni’s at http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/Luca-Penni.)

Luca Penni was one of the Italian artists working at the palace of Fontainebleau in the mid-sixteenth century. The French king Francis I had assembled artists and craftsmen there to decorate the palace, and a particular artistic style, which drew on Mannerism, developed at Fontainebleau. Penni is recorded has having been at Fontainebleau in the late 1530s, but after the original artistic director, Rosso Fiorentino, died and Francesco Primaticcio took over in 1540, Penni left Fontainebleau. After about 1547 he lived and worked mostly in Paris, producing religious, allegorical, mythological, and historical paintings, as well as portraits. Léon Davent, who was another Fontainebleau alum, continued to make etchings of Penni’s designs after they left the palace. Penni also published prints and may even have worked on some etchings himself. Among his possessions when he died were the eight copper plates etched by Davent and used to print the Seven Capital Sins series.[1]

The seven capital sins, also known as the seven cardinal or deadly sins, are the basic sins from which all others originate. The sins (with links to full images of the Davent/Penni etchings) are:

Gula (Gluttony)

Invidia (Envy)

Lussuria (Lust) http://tinyurl.com/m8ynj3a

Ira (Wrath) http://tinyurl.com/ovsvdad

Superbia (Pride) http://tinyurl.com/n7gxowg

Avaritia (Avarice) http://tinyurl.com/pzhv6xl

Pigritia (Sloth) http://www.spamula.net/blog/i41/ld11.jpg

And the frontispiece to the set is Justitia (Justice), http://tinyurl.com/l4eyxht.

The plate for each sin consists of a large central tondo (circular image) flanked by four smaller tondi containing other images relevant to the sin.

Seven of the eight plates were etched by Davent after designs by Penni around 1547, but the plate for Sloth and some of the plate for Lust were done by the same anonymous artist. Two different impressions of the set of etchings are known, one a little darker because of additional burin (the etching tool) work. That set, though, does not include Sloth and Lust.[2]

. . .

Dogs have been associated with negative qualities since antiquity, and those associations were perpetuated in Medieval and Renaissance art. Among the seven cardinal sins, dogs are usually associated with lust, avarice, wrath, and envy.  In ancient Greece, dogs were seen as having a licentious nature and thus were associated with sexual immorality. The Greeks even called prostitutes kuon—dogs. The Roman writer Pliny characterized the dog as a quarrelsome animal—they bark and fight over scraps. And Medieval sources, particularly Flemish ones, made dogs symbols of treachery and persecution (from Psalm 22, “dogs are all around me”). The biblical proverb about dogs returning to their vomit (Proverbs 26:11) equates the dog to the sinner who keeps sinning, and the image also suggests gluttony. Indeed, dogs’ general devotion to food makes them ideal representatives of that sin.[3] Dogs even got a bad rap because of their owners’ behavior. Little lap dogs were associated with vanity because wealthy women were often the ones to keep them as pets, and of course women are inherently frivolous and sinful beings. Also, moralists condemned little pet dogs because their owners fed and doted on the dogs instead of giving food and attention to the poor. (Surely a person can do both!)

No doubt much of the anti-dog sentiment in European culture of yore stems at least in part from the dim view of dogs presented in the Bible. A keyword search for "dog" yields almost entirely negative passages. Except for the neutral treatment of a dog in the book of Tobit, dogs in the Bible are presented as dirty, scavenging, eaters of carrion, and among the lowest forms of life. See for yourself: http://tinyurl.com/pbkpyjh.

For all the negative attributes heaped on dogs in art and literature throughout the centuries, there have always been people who love dogs and who have treated them well. Examples of tombs and elegiac poems for pet dogs can be found from at least as far back as ancient Roman times, and dogs accompany humans in portraits and appear in no particularly bad light in countless paintings. And amid all the deleterious symbolism, dogs have also represented faithfulness, vigilance, and loyalty.

Anyway, on to dogs and the cardinal sins in Davent’s and Penni’s series of etchings.

Gula Dogs are pretty universally known as being obsessed with food, so it is no surprise that dogs are associated with the sin of gluttony. One of the more common images, as in today’s etchings, is a dog lapping up an overindulgent human’s vomit. The origin for such an image, aside from artists’ real-life experience, is likely the bible verse Proverbs 26:11, "Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who reverts to his folly." In Penni’s and Davent’s depiction of gluttony, the focus is on drinking to excess rather than eating. Indeed, anti-tavern sentiment was rife in the sixteenth century (indeed, when was it not?), and the image condemns both excessive drinking and taverns as places of immorality.[4]

The central tondo depicts a group of rowdy and grotesque men gathered around a table laden with food and wine, eating and drinking and carousing with abandon. Down front, a man slumps at the table and vomits on the floor; a dog laps it up with pleasure. It is true: dogs are gross. (Allie Brosh, of the webcomic Hyperbole and a Half, better than any other artist sums up dogs’ attitude toward vomit, namely their own: http://tinyurl.com/28na9kl.) Under the table, two other dogs fight over some bones. Food aggression is a problem; those dogs need some serious socialization and training! A fourth dog sits in front of one of the carousers, being So Very Good in hopes that the man will give her some food. The man, however, holds up a goblet of wine, so perhaps the dog is supposed to be begging for booze, further adding to the debauchery of the scene. With meat on the table, though, a dog would surely be interested in that rather than stupid old wine. If my own dog’s behavior is any indication, the dog in the etching is probably just so excited that the humans are sitting at a table and eating that she does not care what it is on the table, she just wants some of it.

The bottom left auxiliary tondo repeats the image of the puking man and the dog. Penni must have particularly liked that one, for whatever reason.

Avaritia Dogs appear in one of the auxiliary tondi in the etching of Avaritia. Those tondi “are specifically directed at the egotistical accumulation of wealth for its own sake by merchants of the middle class.”[5] In the upper right one, a wealthy man counts his money while a poor beggar, coded as Lazarus from the biblical parable, languishes in poverty and misery outside. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (John 16: 19-31) begins:

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores."[6]

Lazarus and the rich man both die; Lazarus goes to heaven and the rich man to hell. The rich man sees Lazarus by Abraham's side and begs for Lazarus to give him some water, but Abraham tells him that he's out of luck—he should have been generous to the poor while he was alive. Now he's stuck in hell without respite for eternity.

I like to interpret the dogs’ role in that parable in a positive light: When no other person will bother with Lazarus, the dogs go to comfort him, for they do not care about a human’s social station. And a dog’s licks have been said to heal wounds, like in the story of Saint Rocco, so the pups in the parable are actually helping Lazarus.

The direct inspiration for the image of Lazarus in Davent’s and Penni’s etching is one of the illustrations from a 1498 edition of Sebastian Brant’s  Ship of Fools:

Attributed to the Haintz-Nar-Meister Of Useless Death Woodcut from Sebastian Brant’s Stultifera Navis (Basel: Johann Bergmann, 1498) University of Houston Libraries Digital Collections http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/p15195coll15/item/29

The dogs in the etching, though, are delineated in a more refined way, and they appear heathier and happier than the dogs in the woodcut. Lazarus, too, looks happy. The dogs are glad to be licking Lazarus’s leg, and he seems to be enjoying it. Dog licks really tickle, so if nothing else, Lazarus is laughing at that. They might be scruffy street dogs, but they are faithful companions to the ailing Lazarus. So says Museum Dogs, regardless of the original artist’s intentions!

Invidia The main image of Invidia is pretty wild. Envy has nearly always been personified as female, and, as Penni/Davent present her, usually old, thin and wiry, with deflated, hanging breasts. (She often accompanied by a similarly scraggly dog, but not in this image.) In the etching, she has lightning bolts or flames her hands and a snake in her mouth. Two demons torture her while a third—or maybe the Devil himself—swoops by with a pitchfork. All of this takes place at the mouth of hell, which pours forth flames and smoke. Guarding the gate, as he does in classical mythology, is the three-headed dog Cerberus. His heads arenjust visible above the bottom frame of the image. Wild-eyed and with mouths agape, Cerberus is very worked up by the goings-on around him. (The entrance to the underworld seems to be much quieter in the Greek myths; the Christian version is the more frightening one by far.)

Cerberus has appeared on Museum Dogs a number of times, and the opinion around here is that even though he is a fearsome creature, he is at heart a sad, mistreated, and Misunderstood Dog. Read through http://museumdogs.tumblr.com/tagged/cerberus for more on that theme.

To the left of the image, the skeleton of some unlucky quadruped lays on a cliff at the edge of the abyss. Crows and a couple of dogs—in their biblical role as scavengers—pick at the carcass. (To put yet another positive spin on dogs’ position in the scene, remember that scavengers are very useful. Without them, the world would be littered with dead animals slowly decomposing. It is the scavengers who put the flesh to good use as food and, in doing so, help to keep the world a little tidier.)

The image in the top right tondo is taken from one of the fables of Aesop (dogs don’t make out so well in those stories, either) that deals with envy, that of the dog in the manger:

A dog lay in a manger, and by his growling and snapping prevented the oxen from eating the hay which had been placed for them. ‘What a selfish Dog!’ said one of them to his companions; ‘he cannot eat the hay himself, and yet refuses to allow those to eat who can.’[7]

The dog in the tondo is a skinny and irate fellow. I can’t excuse this one’s behavior. Bad Dog! Let the poor ox eat in peace! Perhaps, with training and guidance, the dog will chill out and learn to not grudge the ox his hay. 

Yes, we here at Museum Dogs are obiviouly biased when it comes to Man’s Best Friend. Yes, dogs can be disgusting and troublesome, but they as animals cannot be expected to follow human morality. The Medieval and Renaissance anti-canine moralizers were just mean and wrong about dogs!

. . .

For a full discussion of Penni’s and Davent’s Capital Sins etchings, read Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier’s article “Sebastian Brant: The Key to Understanding Luca Penni's Justice and the Seven Deadly Sins,” in The Art Bulletin from June 1996. It is availble on JSTOR. If you don’t have an account or are not attached to an institution with one, you can sign up for a MyJSTOR account, which allows you to read articles online. It’s free and totally worth doing. 

 Notes _________________________

1. Suzanne Boorsch, et al., The Engravings of Giorgio Ghisi (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985), p. 91, http://tinyurl.com/mucryvr.

2. British Museum, "Capital Sins: Justice," museum number 1851,0208.158, object entry, http://tinyurl.com/nngtpmc.

3. Simona Cohen, Animals as Disguised Symbols in Renaissance Art (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 2008), pp. 136–137, 212–213, http://tinyurl.com/luujsuo.

4. Kathleen Wilson-Chevalier, “Sebastian Brant: The Key to Understanding Luca Penni's Justice and the Seven Deadly Sins,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 78, no. 2 (June 1996), p. 248.

5. Wilson-Chevalier, p. 244

6. John 16: 19-21, Bible Gateway, http://tinyurl.com/n7soa4m.