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MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM The Fontainebleau Group Continued

(30.1.2023) Here our research on the subgroup of Salvator Mundi paintings that we had referred to, early in January, as the Fontainebleau group does continue. We are proud to present a new entry to that group, the version of the Musée des beaux-arts de Quimper, which does obviously belong to that group as well, but may be unknown to most Salvator Mundi scholars. We continue to look at the provenance of the Detroit version. And last but not least: we may look further at the jewellery of Maria de’ Medici.

[preliminary note: below I am also reproducing my ›Leonardo da Vinci at the Courts‹ essay, with the section on ›Melzi at Fontainebleau‹, because not only the Salvator Mundi does multiply at Fontainebleau, but, as it appears, also the Melzi Flora; and as to the attributional problem of the notoriously famous Salvator Mundi version, it is important to know what happens at Fontainebleau, and also with other pictures, and for example with pictures that, today, are attributed to Francesco Melzi and not to Leonardo]

One) A New Addition to the Fontainebleau Group: the Quimper Version

The Salvator Mundi version of the Musée des beaux-arts de Quimper (large picture on the left) is known to me not because I have visited the city of Quimper, but because the official Twitter channel of the museum did tweet a picture of the painting early in 2020. And I dare to say, judging from that picture (and despite the state of the painting), that this version is obviously closely related to the version of the Detroit Institute of Art (small picture on the left and on the right). The Quimper version is (or was) being restored, at c2rmf, as it seems. And what I know about this version is that it had been, in the 19th century, attributed to Bernardino Luini (see here).
It is the first of two new (unknown) Salvator Mundi versions that I am presenting here (the other version I am going to present in my The Windsor Sleeve Continued essay.

Two) The Alleged French Provenance of the Detroit Version

After 1800 the Detroit Salvator Mundi had been presented as a Leonardo, and it had been said that it had been painted for French king Francis I. Is it necessary to remind that both of these ideas have been falsified by dendrochronology?
But what about the rest of the provenance story? Well, the question would be: how are we able to decide if the rest, given that a large part of the provenance narrative is already falsified, is credible?

Apart from the fact that the Detroit picture indeed has a French provenance (if it was painted by Ambroise Dubois at Fontainebleau, this may be the grain of truth in that provenance story), it has recently become even more likely that Richard Troward, the Pall Mall sollicitor who bought the Detroit picture, did indeed buy the Detroit picture after it had been at Buckingham House and that he may have bought it from Buckingham House (perhaps with the help of another intermediary dealer). And why? Because Richard Troward was a collector who, according to provenance researchers, but also according to other sources, was closely associated with another collector, a man named Thomas Hammersley. Who was nobody else than the Banker of the Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales was George IV (picture on the left), who was also the one who had Buckingham House remodelled.
Given these facts the two provenance threads (that of the Detroit picture, a thread that begins with Troward; and that of the notoriously famous Salvator Mundi, whose alleged early provenance ends at Buckingham House) seem to come even more closer than anybody ever may have thought. And I see three possible explanations of why art dealers of the 19th century may have given a French provenance to the Detroit picture (or accepted one of it): because a) one did not want to name an English Royal provenance; b) because one did want to support the credibility of the picture being a Leonardo (painted for Francis I), and c) one may have assumed that the picture came from the Orléans sale, as another picture, a Rubens, that went through the hands of Hammersley first, and then of Troward.
But again: the idea that the picture may have been painted for Francis I is falsified. It was not. Because of which one may also and has to question the rest of the provenance story. And again: the question is: on what grounds may we say that the rest is credible, if a large part has already been proven to be false, and given the fact that the two provenance threads come as close as they do?

Three) The Jewellery of Maria de’ Medici

The jewellery that Maria de’ Medici is wearing in portraits by Frans Pourbus the Younger is similar, but not identical to that in the Dubois Salvator and the Wedding-by-Proxy-painting in Fontainebleau (based on a comparison of the brooch with pearls, combined with a cherub motive, I had linked these two pictures and attributed the Detroit Salvator to Dubois).
We may find that this jewellery in the Pourbus portrait (where no cherub does appear) makes it even more credible that the Detroit Salvator is indeed by Dubois or his circle (by someone indeed close to Maria de’ Medici, that is), and we may assume that the style of jewellery actually weared by Maria is seen in the Salvator as well as in her portraits, or did at least influence the jewellery shown in these paintings.
Pourbus the Younger entered the service of Maria de’ Medici at a time Dubois was at the end of his career (in 1609, as it seems). And one might look into the history of jewellery, in (official style court) painting, or in religious painting even further, to establish perhaps a chronology that might show to be relevant also as to the dating of the Detroit picture.

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MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM Leonardo da Vinci at the Courts

(21.1.2023) Looking back at my 2021 New Salvator Mundi History, which was a project in its own right, my research interest is now developing into two directions: our perspective has a) to be broadened towards a general history of Leonardo attribution (a project that only can embarked on with a good portion of sarcasm and humour, because this story is so full of stuff and nonsense), and b) we have to study the Salvator Mundi iconography now in various epochs and geographical regions, aiming at preparing the overview that is lacking, and starting, perhaps, with Early Netherlandish painting. But below I am showing, with three examples, that at around 1600, there was already confusion as to what Leonardo had painted and as to what the Leonardeschi. Three examples of discernement lost (or never attained), and three examples of Leonardo da Vinci, or better: of what was taken as Leonardo, at/from the Courts of Europe.

One) Melzi at Fontainebleau

While the example that Vasari had named was actually Salaì (paintings by Salaì that Leonardo had – to whatever degree – reworked, and that were taken as originals by Leonardo, and this in Milan), our first example is Francesco Melzi. And it has to be Melzi, since what we find at Fontainebleau, at the court of French king Henry IV and queen Maria de’ Medici, is, Melzi as well as Leonardo.
If we put aside for a moment that also a Salvator Mundi painting multiplied at Fontainableau, due to the work of Franco-Flemish painters at Fontainebleau – what we know is that the Vertumnus and Pomona (now in Berlin; picture on the left) was at Fontainebleau, and also do we know, this is perhaps a bit less known, that Maria de’ Medici was in possession of a Flora (picture on the right). This Flora painting is the Melzi Flora (now in the Hermitage), and this is a painting that, as it seems (I am not in the position to consult the necessary documents), was taken as a painting by Leonardo then.
As for the Vertumnus and Pomona – this is either a painting that from the beginning was taken as a Leonardo, or it did turn to be one (perhaps due to a Melzi signature scratched off, plus wishful thinking).
And the picture at Fontainebleau completes if we further mention that Fontainebleau painter Ambroise Dubois (the supposed author of the Detroit Salvator), not only was commissioned to copy the Mona Lisa, this we know, but that he might also have been commissioned to copy the Flora, since I am tempted to see the Salvator group which I have named the ›Fontainebleau group‹ in parallel to the various Flora versions of which we know, and of which the version today at Blois strikes me as a possible Dubois (small picture on the right).

Be it as it may, but if it would be indeed true that also the Flora was copied at Fontainebleau, our first insight must be that a Melzi painting (or better: a painting that is, by general consensus, seen as a Melzi today) had been appreciated to the degree that it was copied. And if it was copied as a Leonardo (because people, then, thought it to be a Leonardo) we would have a model, a paradigm, a theory that could also be applied to the Salvator Mundi known as version Cook (the notoriously famous version, which I consider to be a Melzi-plus-Leonardo-hybrid that was possibly finished also by help of Salaì). Brief: it seems that at Fontainebleau, at around 1600, there was hardly made a difference between Melzi as an author and Leonardo as an author. And this insight may never be lost.

Two) Marco at the Papal Court

Our second example is the Salvator Mundi by Marco d’Oggiono at the Galleria Borghese, which is a painting that was, as the Galleria Borghese is telling us, given by Pope Paul V (small picture above on the left) to his nephew Scipione Borghese (small picture on the right) as a present in 1611. Thus there is little to argue here: the painting by Marco, by general consensus a rather early one, was seen as a Leonardo in 1611, and this by a pope, who provided his nephew, the founder of the Galleria Borghese, with it, leaving it to further centuries to correct the attribution, which, however, is on record. Thus, also at the papal court: the painting of one of the Leonardeschi, of Marco d’Oggiono, who was, at his day, probably much more popular than he is today, had already turned to be a Leonardo.

Three) Luini at Whitehall

The Luini Flora in the Royal Collection, in Palace of Whitehall then, is our third and last example. Was there a discernement at the court of Charles I and Henrietta Maria as to the difference between a Luini and a Leonardo? It seems that there was none: »recorded in the Little Room between the Breakfast Chamber and the Long Gallery at Whitehall in 1639 (no 21) as Leonardo da Vinci«, the website of the Royal Collection does inform us. And the discernment was brought back only much later.
Thus we would be mistaken to think that the conoscenti at the place where we see also a Salvator Mundi painting, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, did make a difference. As a matter of fact they did not. Luini was Leonardo. And in case there might have been also Melzi or Dubois – on what grounds may we claim that the court of Charles I had the necessary discernment to tell what was what? In other words: is it not more appropriate to think that Leonardo attributions, also at the courts of the Stuarts, and also generally, are not particularly reliable? Due to early confusion and necessary discernement lost very early on?

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