The Triumph of Silenus
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 62 x 74 cm
Inventory numberNMDrh 710
Other titlesTitel (sv): Silenus triumftåg Titel (en): The Triumph of Silenus
DescriptionRes. Katalogtext: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 47: FORMER INV. NOS.: 47 (M. 1796–97); 186 (F. 1798); 389 (M. 1804); KM 94; NM 6. TECHNICAL NOTES: The support is a single piece of coarse, sparsely woven, plain-weave linen fabric (12 x 12 threads/cm2). The ground is red. The painting has been lined with glue and mounted with staples on a Martelli strainer. The right tacking edge has been cropped. Impastos in the paint layer have been flattened due to the lining. There are some old retouches. The varnish is yellowed. Documented restorations: 1990: Consolidation of flaking paint. Retouching. Varnish. PROVENANCE: Martelli 1804. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sander 1872–76, III, p. 130, no. 389 (as Francesco Albani). In Fredenheim’s catalogue, this painting and its companion piece NMDrh 711 (cat. no. 48) are attributed to Albani.¹ NMDrh 711 was later attributed to Crespi by Pontus Grate.² That attribution seems appropriate for the present painting as well. Both Mira Pajes Merriman and Dwight C. Miller link Crespi’s development of his pastoral style, and its distinctive Bolognese quality, to the influence of Albani, who in turn was dependent on the development of the Carracci in this field.³ As Merriman describes, Albani was instrumental in the development of an Ovidian bucolic style of painting, with subject matter that could be directly linked to the evolving interest in Arcadian poetry in 17th-century Italy, an interest that had led to the founding of Arcadian academies in both Rome and Bologna. Although Albani’s pastorals, with “figural groups set in peaceful glades and meadowlands”,⁴ were hugely influential, Crespi’s own interpretation of this Arcadian subject could take quite a different shape. Miller emphasizes how Crespi’s pastorals took on more temperament and rusticity, employing a brusque, sombre naturalism as well as a humorous idiom and Emilian local colour, a style which Merriman describes as “Poesia Buffa”.⁵ Miller also rightly gives a wider background to the development of the Bolognese pastoral, going beyond Albani to the Carracci’s own influences in this genre. Among these, he mentions the Ferrarese Dosso Dossi (1486‒1542), Correggio (1494–1534), Niccolò dell’Abate and Giulio Romano (1492–1546), artists who also, directly as well as indirectly, influenced Crespi. Miller concludes that the interpretation of the pastoral tradition after the Carracci took two directions: one taken by Ludovico and followed by Guercino, where the central figural groups are offset by a darker crepuscular setting, and the other, chiefly taken by Albani, where an eternal afternoon light pervades the scenes and the background is built from finely detailed trees, bushes and glades. Miller believes that Crespi followed the path of Ludovico and Guercino rather than that of Albani.⁶ However, while some of the characteristics exhibited in the present painting could be attributable to the influence of Guercino, its chief inspiration is Albani’s style. The light which permeates the whole composition recalls the near twilight and sense of perpetual transient late afternoon of Albani’s pastorals. It is very similar to that of its companion piece, yet has a slightly darker quality, which to some extent is also reminiscent of the light found in similar pastorals by Guercino. The beautiful opening of the landscape to the far left makes the composition brighter, though, than Crespi’s landscapes in general. This beautifully mirrors the corresponding opening of the landscape in NMDrh 711. The facial types are in Crespi’s style: for example, the upturned face of the girl in the left foreground, the profiles of the man plucking bunches of grapes from the vine and the woman approaching Silenus from the left, and the faces of the nymphs surrounding him to the right. Details such as the garlands of vine leaves and the donkey are also very similar to Crespi’s previously known depictions of such flora and fauna.⁷ As in NMDrh 711, we also find the figure of the woman with a striding pose entering the scene from the right, which recurs in some of Crespi’s other pastorals. ⁸ Through these figures, a vivid sense of revelry is conveyed in the painting. The great girth of Silenus, who is depicted in perfect drunkenness, weighs on the poor donkey, and he almost topples over, to the concern, and great amusement, of the attending satyrs. These details are fine examples of the temperament and humour typical of the “poesia buffa” that was also a major feature of Crespi’s genre paintings. With the reservation that the light of the composition could perhaps be considered brighter than is usually found in Crespi’s pastorals, the general assessment of this painting points to an attribution to that artist or his close circle. dp 1 NM Archives, Kongl. Museum, F:1, Catalogue du Cabinet de Martelli (à Rome). 2 NM Archives, Dokumentationsarkivet: NMDrh 710. 3 Miller 1985, pp. 339–342. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 For comparison see: Spike 1986, pp. 123–127, 142–143, 146–147, 154–155, 160–161, 162–163, cat. nos. 7–9, 17, 19, 22, 25, 26, figs. 7.1, 22.1, 26.1; Emiliani and Rave 1990, pp. 315–317, 388–391, 434–435, 442–443, 450–451, 460–461, cat. nos. 34–35, 69–70, 92, 96, 101, 106. 8 Spike 1986, pp. 154–155, cat. no. 22. [End]
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