THE LEONARDO DA VINCI ARCHIPELAGO

(Picture: comicvine.com)

THE VIRTUAL LEONARDO DA VINCI RESEARCH INSTITUTE

For THE PROPELLER ISLAND see here.
And for the ARCHIVE to the ARCHIPELAGO and to the INSTITUTE see here.

We celebrate the inauguration of the institute with our first presentation

Giovanni Morelli and Leonardo da Vinci

(being, naturally, a supplement to my The Giovanni Morelli Monograph; for full titles of literature cited here see here)

GIOVANNI MORELLI AND LEONARDO DA VINCI


(Picture: Bora (ed.) 1994, p. 91)


Morelli’s alleged ›Leonardo‹ (source: De Marchi 2001, p. 183)

(Picture: nationalgallery.org.uk)

1860s (probably in or after 1868): In a Florentine second-hand shop Morelli buys a Christ by, as he thinks, Bernardino Luini (formerly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci) (Gibson-Wood 1988, p. 223f. and 333, note 57; Ginoulhiac 1940, p. 55); Morelli, subsequently, sells the painting to collector John Samuel (1812-1887; on the latter see Fleming 1973, p. 9); it is kept today by the National Gallery, London, being catalogued as ›After Luini‹.



1872: Morelli is studying drawings in Venice and reattributes an alleged Leonardo drawing to Boltraffio, regarding the drawing as a preparatory study for a painting in the possession of his cousin, a painting – shown above (picture: lombardiabeniculturali.it) – that he thinks to be by Boltraffio (Anderson 1999a, p. 153f.; compare also Zeri/Rossi 1986, p. 181f.). Below another Salvator Mundi from the collection of Morelli, now in the Accademia Carrara of Bergamo (picture: lacarrara.it; in Zeri/Rossi 1986, p. 187, the provenance information as to the above ›After Luini‹ is mistakenly associated with this picture, which Morelli ascribed to Marco d’Oggiono).



1873 (October): Morelli is making plans to go to Paris to do research on Leonardo (Agosti 1985, p. 63, note 20).



1875 (August): Morelli studies in Paris; he thinks a small Annunciation in the Louvre (above and large picture below) to be by Leonardo; much importance he gives to the color red in the cloak of the angel, compared to the Madonna of the Rocks (a red, as he thinks, never been used by Lorenzo di Credi), to movement and position of the Virgin’s left hand, to the lower folds of the angel's cloak (as again compared to the Madonna of the Rocks) and to the oval shape of the Virgin’s head, being closer to the Leonardesque than to the Lorenzo di Credi female head type (see: M/R. p. 176f.; and compare the larger pictures below).



1879ff: Morelli is much up help in favor of his pupil Jean Paul Richter’s (picture above: Bora (ed.) 1994, p. 91) putting together of a monumental two-volume edition of Leonardo’s ›Literary Works‹; this work will be published in shape of a two-volume anthology, which is organized thematically, in 1883. Morelli’s contribution is direct and indirect, in that he helps Richter in getting access to the archival sources, to find subscribers for the project, but also in helping him in revising transcriptions of Leonardo’s notes and in assorting authentic Leonardo drawings to be published with the anthology.

1880: Morelli 1880 does contain a woodcut illustration meant to demonstrate the basic shape of a Leonardesque ear; this illustration, however, without the public getting to know it, Morelli dismisses in his general dismissing of this kind of illustrations contained in Morelli 1880; in a letter (GM to Jean Paul Richter, 27 May 1880) he does speak admiringly and enthusiastically of Leonardo’s mind.

1880ff.: Morelli is showing a mysterious painting (to be seen on the left above) which is hung in his bed room, to assorted pupils and friends, pretending it to be his ›Leonardo‹; unfortunately this is resulting, despite of his friends knowing of his waggish sense of humour, with the painting being supported as a Leonardo by most of his pupils (not by Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes, but by Jean Paul Richter, Gustavo Frizzoni, and for some time, by Bernard Berenson).

1881: Morelli discusses the Louvre Annunciation with his pupil Jean Paul Richter.



1883: Morelli’s pupil Jean Paul Richter dismisses publicly the London version of the Madonna of the Rocks (above) as not at all being by Leonardo; this in accordance with Morelli’s opinion (see GM to Jean Paul Richter, 14 July 1883), who, however, tends to hold it back and to not confront his English friends with it, resulting with his English friends not becoming aware that Richter actually had only, in all his arrogance and believing to be backed by Morelli, trumpeted out Morelli’s harsh judgment.

1884: the find of an alleged Risorto by Leonardo in the deposit of the gallery at Berlin is much discussed; Morelli, judging from a photograph, dismisses the painting as being a Flemish imitation of Marco d’Oggiono (and in later calling it a Flemish imitation of Leonardo).

1885: in January Morelli is again much concerned with Leonardo and particularly with his apparently ›medieval‹ side, that seems to show itself in a seemingly not very critical digesting of informations drawn from medieval bestiaries; Morelli refers to Leonardo as being a theist.

In the same year he does also attribute the small Annunciation of the Louvre to Leonardo da Vinci; Sir Henry Austen Layard publishes the attribution in 1887 with giving Morelli the credit for it.

1887 (November 2): Morelli, in a long (yet unpublished) letter, comments upon Wilhelm Bode writing on Verrocchio and Leonardo (many of Morelli’s views reveal here more clearly than in Morelli’s books).



1889ff.: Morelli is much concerned to dismiss the Munich Madonna of the Carnation’s (above) being, as Adolph Bayersdorfer sees it, by Leonardo.

1891: Morelli has bequeathed his ›Leonardo‹ to Donna Laura Minghetti, after whom the painting is later named, although Donna Laura, knowing that Morelli did not think the painting to be by Leonardo, gives it to her daughter, who, after moving to Berlin, leaves it behind in Rome; where the American collector Theodore M. Davis manages to buy it in 1898, advised by Jean Paul Richter, and as a Leonardo (and this despite of Donna Laura’s knowing of Morelli’s actual opinion as to the painting).

…much importance he gives to the color red in the cloak of the angel, compared to the Madonna of the Rocks (a red, as he thinks, never been used by Lorenzo di Credi), to movement and position of the Virgin’s left hand, to the lower folds of the angel's cloak (as again compared to the Madonna of the Rocks) and to the oval shape of the Virgin’s head, being closer to the Leonardesque than to the Lorenzo di Credi female head type (compare also Morelli 1893, p. 24).

The Small Annunciation in the Louvre

THE LEONARDO DA VINCI
ARCHIPELAGO

HOME

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
HOME

Top of the page

Microstory of Art Main Index

Dietrich Seybold Homepage

The Virtual
Leonardo da Vinci
Research Institute

© DS