Physical description
A young woman in classical dress with right breast exposed stands by a river bank in a wooded landscape holding a miniature ship in both hands
Place of Origin
Siena (town), Italy (painted)
Date
mid 16th century (painted)
Artist/maker
Neroni, Bartolomeo, born 1500 - died 1571 (painter (artist))
Materials and Techniques
Tempera on panel
Dimensions
Height: 74.3 cm estimate, Width: 45.7 cm estimate
Object history note
Purchased for £4 from the painter W. B. Spence in Florence in 1869.
A note in the object file states that: 'The 2 ptgs. [425-1869; 426-1869] were removed with other ptgs. from the wall (West) of Rm. 108 (staircase) and stored temporarily in June 1917, when the Board of Education took over temporarily durint the rest of the war period, this portiono fht eMuseum for use as offices. F. W. Stokes'
Historical significance: Bartolommeo Neroni, (known as il Riccio) (1505/15?- 1571) was a Sienese painter, illuminator, architect, stage designer and engineer. His earliest surviving documented works, include illuminations for an Antiphonal, (signed, dated 1531–2, Genoa, Bib. Berio) and a fresco of The Departure of SS Maurus and Placid (1534) for the convent of Monte Oliveto Maggiore reveal the influence of Il Sodoma. His later paintings also demonstrate a close familiarity with works by Domenico Beccafumi and Baldassare Peruzzi who were also working in Siena at that time. His figures have the sharp-nosed features favoured by Beccafumi, the soft limpid eyes painted by Sodoma and the bodies and monumental spatial composition of Peruzzi. Neroni's name is associated with several important buildings in Siena and from 1552-55 he was primarily occupied with building fortifications and making military models and drawings.
Neroni most likely painted the two panels depicting standing women holding attributes in the V&A collection (425-1869; 426-1869) as part of a series of three donne illustre or famous women in the poetic tradition of Petrarch and Bocaccio. These panels probably formed part of a painted series of decorations for a room in a palace and may have originally formed the back of a cassapanca or bench chest such as those painted by Beccafumi ca. 1519 for Francesco Petrucci (National Gallery, London, Doria Pamphilj, Rome). 426-1869 has long been described as a personification of Confidence but she may be more precisely identified as the ancient Roman maiden Claudia Quinta and her pose suggests she originally formed the right hand panel of the series. Claudia is praised in Pliny's chapter dedicated to 'The Most Chaste Matrons' which recounts how when the vessel conveying the statue of Cybele became stuck in the mud in the Tiber river, and the soothsayers declared that none but a chaste woman could move it, Claudia, previously accused of unchastity, high handedly pulled the ship to safety. The identity of the third central (missing) maiden in the series remains unknown, although Sulpitia, praised by Bocaccio as the most highly chaste Roman matron, is a strong possibility. Like Claudia, Sulpitia is among the illustrious women praised by Pliny and appears together with Tuccia in Bocaccio's Famous Women. Appropriately, Claudia and Sulpitia appear together in another series of virtuous women painted in the 1490s for a Sienese patrician palace (NG Washington; The Walters Art. Mus., Baltimore, respectively).
Historical context note
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy, artists were often commissioned to create painted wooden furnishings for the domestic interior, especially for the camera (bedchamber) of wealthy private palaces. Such works were generally commissioned to celebrate a new marriage or the birth of a child and could include a lettiera (bed), spalliera or cornicioni (a painted frieze), a cassapanca (bench-chest) and a set of cassone (marriage chests) among other objects and furnishings. The decoration often included subjects associated with fertility, maternity, childbirth, marriage and fidelity and could include references to the patrons through inclusion of their coat of arms and heraldic colours, or of their personal motto or device.
Descriptive line
Tempera painting, Claudia Quinta (Confidence), Bartolomeo Neroni (Il Riccio), mid 16th century
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Kauffmann, C.M., Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, p. 204, cat. no. 252.
The following is the full text of the entry:
Bartolommeo NERONI (ll Riccio) (? 1500-71/73)
Sienese School
He worked mainly in Siena, and also in Monte Oliveto, Lucca, and elsewhere. A pupil of Baldessare Peruzzi, he was strongly influenced by Sodoma, whose daughter he married in 1543, and by Beccafumi. His principal work is the Coronation of the Virgin in the Pinacoteca at Siena.
252
CONFIDENCE
Tempera on panel
29 ¼ x 18 (74.3 x 45.7)
426-1869
Companion piece to 425-1869 (no. 251).
The meaning of this allegory is explained at length by Ripa, Iconologia, 1603, p. 82. The ship represents the sailor's knowledge of the dangers of the sea as well as the instrument with which to overcome them, just as Confidence implies a full appreciation of impending pitfalls combined with the ability to avoid them. Ripa's description of the allegorical figure is so close to this painting that a common prototype may be assumed.
Prov. Bought for £4 from the painter W. B. Spence in Florence in 1869.
Exh. Between Renaissance and Baroque, European art 1520-1600, Manchester City Art Gallery, 1965, no. 162.
Lit. See no. 251.
Bernhard Berenson, Italian pictures of the renaissance Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1932, p. 65.
Attributes the painting to Beccafumi.
A. Venturi. Storia dell'arte italiana. 11. vols. (Milano : U. Hoepli, 1901-1940), vol. ix, pt. 5, 1932, p. 450, figs. 253-54
Reproduces both V&A pictures, attributes them to Beccafumi and erroneously states that they are in the Bayonne Museum
Maria Gibellino Krasceninnicowa, Il Beccafumi, con prefazione di A. Venturi. Siena, Istituto communale d'arte e di storia, 1933. p. 67f., pls. xvi, xvii.
Attributes the painting to Beccafumi.
J. Pope-Hennessy, 'Beccafumi in the V. & A. Museum' in Burlington Magazine vol. 76, no. 445, (April, 1940),pp. 110-123. esp. p. 115f, pl. ii.
Attributes the painting to Neroni.
Exhibition History
Between Renaissance and Baroque: European art 1520-1600 (Manchester Art Gallery 01/01/1965-31/12/1965)
Production Note
This allegorical figure and its companion piece (425-1869) were attributed to Domenico Beccafumi in the 1930s by Berenson, Venturi and Gibellino-Krasceninnicowa. John Pope-Hennessy convincingly attributed them to Neroni in 1940.
Materials
Panel; Tempera
Techniques
Panel painting
Subjects depicted
Ships; Allegory; Rome; Claudia
Categories
Paintings
Collection code
PDP
