876677

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Ingres's 'Bain Turc' at the LouvreAuthor(s): Christopher SellsSource: The Burlington Magazine , Vol. 113, No. 820 (Jul., 1971), pp. 422+424+427

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CURRENT ND FORTHCOMNGEXHBTIONS

among miscellaneous glass in the tall

windows, some fine early seventeenth-

century Swiss glass, and several fifteenth-

century panels originally in St Peter

Mancroft, Norwich.

The contents of the house include some

good portraits by Lely of William

Windham I, his wife and father-in-law;

and an important pair of large London

views by Samuel Scott: London Bridge and

The Tower of London from the Thames, of

i753. But art-historically perhaps the

most important feature of the house is the

Cabinet, still essentially as it was arranged

by William Windham II in 1752, to house

the products of his Grand Tour, with its

crimson damask and gold cord still intact.

The pictures here are dominated by a

series of thirty-two oils and gouaches by a

vigorous follower of Gaspar Dughet,

Giovanni Battista Busiri (on whom see

F. Hawcroft, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th

Ser. 53, I959). Busiri was one of the

earliest purveyors to Grand Tourists of

souvenir views of Rome and the Cam-

pagna, and at exactly the same moment

that Windham was arranging his collection

at Felbrigg, a far grander collection of

Roman reminiscences by Claude and

Dughet himself was being assembled by

Thomas Coke in the Landscape Room

at nearby Holkham. It may indeed be that

the two rooms are related in conception,

for in other instances Coke does not seem

to have been above advising Windham s

relatives how to improve the amenities at

Felbrigg. Certainly both are outstandingly

coherent witnesses of eighteenth-century

English taste. Among the Dutch pictures

are a large marine by Willem van de

Velde I and II, a pendant to one in the

National Maritime Museum, an im-

pressive sea-battle off Amoy by Simon de

Vlieger, signed and dated I650, and a

beach-scene by Ecbert van der Poel. The

library contains a small collection of books

once owned by Dr Johnson, and an

extensive series of uniform bindings in

natural sheepskin, probably by Windham

himself and wholly in keeping with the

plainness of the setting. Altogether the

house is in an outstanding state of preser-

vation, and much was restored by Mr

Ketton-Cremer, who had lived there

since I924.

Felbrigg has extensive gardens and a

park and woods of some I I0oo acres, part

of which will be opened to the public.

House and gardens are open from Ist

July until the second Sunday in October,

on Tuesdays , Wednesdays,Thursdays and

Sundays from 2-6. Admission is 25p.

J .G .

Ingres s Bain Turc at the Louvre

At the beginning of April, the inaugura-

tion of the new galleries in the Aile de

Flore was marked by a special showing of

Ingres s Bain Turc (it continued until

28th June) which assembled preparatory

drawings, related works and engravings

used as sources. This was intended to be

the first of a series of didactic exhibitions

devoted to pictures from the Louvre s

collections, and it will be all to the good

if the others match the standard set by the

painstaking scrutiny of Mlle Helkne

Toussaint, who compiled the catalogue,

and Mme Suzy Delbourgo who inter-

preted the results of the laboratory

studies.

The Bain Turc is one of those pictures

whose power of attraction seems unlikely

or even undeserved. In Ingres s own

euvre it stands somewhere between the

Odalisques and those historical set-pieces

where already moribund ideas are finally

put to sleep and enbalmed. Of course

for the artist himself it held a special

importance, as the subject allowed him

to exercise his skill in a field for which he

had a marked personal preference, yet

even so the picture does not escape the

triviality that afflicts Ingres at his worst,

and which is quite absent in the Valpinfon

Baigneuse and the Grande Odalisque. Apart

from the consideration due to the advanced

age of Ingres when he painted it, it is

certainly not a work that compels respect.

This was confirmed in the exhibition by a

selection of works by contemporary artists

supposedly inspired by the Bain Turc but

really showing little more than different

manners of satirizing the original (the

most amusing was a photographic dis-

tortion by Alex Mlynarcik, which adopted

the comic-strip convention of doubling

the contours to make the flesh appear to

vibrate and wobble). The catalogue also

provided a selection of unfavourable

criticisms like Claudel s ship s-biscuit

full of maggots and Dr Laignel-Lava-

stine s devastating multiples rotondite s circu-

laires d une champignonniere de champignons

de coucher .

Seeing it hung near to the perfection

of the Valpinfon Baigneuse brings out

weaknesses in the Bain Turc which by

Ingres s own exacting standards must be

faults. The most noticeable is the disparity

of the lighting of the central seated figure

and those of the main group to the right;

their colouring is consistent with the

tonality of a north-lit studio, while direct

sunlight plays on the shoulders of the seated

woman. But even if the painting were far

less skilful than it is, it would still fascinate:

for one kind of critical interpretation it is

the evidence that shows Monsieur Ingres

being honest to his unconscious desires

after a lifetime of sublimation (I follow

the fashion of referring to him as Mon-

sieur , as it characterizes Ingres more

deftly as an honourable bourgeois with a

naughty hidden penchant). And for art

historians the picture has the great virtue

of being rich in borrowings and self-

quotations, and complex in its evolution.

The exhibition contains about thirty

preparatory drawings and studies, mostly

from Montauban, but including some

from the Cabinet des Dessins and some

from private collections. The illustration

chosen here (Fig.83) is a study for a

figure whose body disappeared when the

painting was converted from a rectangle

to a circle; she originally filled the lower

right corner. Some difficulties necessarily

occur in the dating of these drawings, since

it is not always possible to tell whether they

are studies for the Bain Turc or for some

earlier picture, or indeed whether they

are intended for any painting at all. This

is rather the case with the small oil study

from Montauban known as La Femme aux

Trois Bras (Cat. No.28, also illustrated

in Wildenstein), which is here given a

date between 1815 and 1818. It takes up a

pose which Ingres had already traced

directly from a Scotin engraving (No.12),

and which reappears slightly modified in

the Bain Turc as the woman in full frontal

view on the right, with her hands crossed

over her head. In the Femme aux Trois

Bras, the right hand rests on the right

thigh; a second right arm was added

later, crossing the left arm above the head.

The early date is apparently opted for on

the basis of a resemblance of the face to

a portrait drawing of Ingres s first wife

Madeleine Chapelle. The same face is

reproduced very closely in the Bain Turc,

where Lapauze originally detected the

resemblance. Yet against this are the

signs of a certain feebleness of touch in

the oil study, such as the smudgy treat-

ment of the eyes, that have their parallels

in the Bain Turc. Also, the body is of the

heavy physical type preponderant in the

Bain Turc, while a slimmer ideal is to be

seen in the Grande Odalisque (I814), the

Dream of Ossian (I813) and the Petite

Baigneuse dated 1828. The grossness comes

from the Scotin engraving, but it is

hardly likely that Ingres would have

retained it unless it corresponded to his

own predilections, which by the time of

the Bain Turc are evidently for this type.

The problem is enlarged by two drawings

stuck down side by side (No.27): on the

left is the same figure as the oil study,

only without the third arm, on the right a

close-up of the face; it is reasonable to

assume that these are after the living model.

After sticking these down Ingres drew a

study, overlapping the sheets, of hands

crossed behind an invisible head as in the

revision of the Femme aux Trois Bras. It is

likely that these drawings were done con-

currently with the oil study, yet i8i 5-1818

still seems much too early, unless the

head is beyond doubt that of Madeleine

Chapelle. In the squared drawing (No.

55) of the group for the right of the Bain

Turc, which can hardly be anything but

a late preparatory study, the figure is

taken exactly from the oil study, with

arms folded over the head, and with no

allowance made for the raising of the

right breast that this pose would cause.

We can therefore assume that Ingres did

not make fresh drawings from the life for

this figure before incorporating it in the

group. Also, the right thigh is sketched in

here in a slightly raised position, as in

the oil study, and then more strongly

outlined resting on the left leg. Despite

the resemblance to the first Mme Ingres,

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CURRENT ND FORTHCOMNGEXHBTIONS

the indications are that the Femme aux

Trois Bras belongs to the much later

period.

The X-rays carried out on the Bain

Turc revealed that the picture was

originally 88 cm. high, 74 cm. wide, and

that this was twice enlarged by the

addition of extra strips of canvas all round,

until it reached its present size of i i o cm.

square, the canvas being laid down on a

panel. The present circular composition

was inscribed in this square and the

angles covered over with a coat of white

paint. Samples of the paint surface taken

from these parts showed layers of colour

beneath, which practically confirms that

this is the same painting as that seen in

the photograph known as the cliche

Marville . This photograph shows up a

date of I859 on a rectangular picture,

while the Bain Turc in its present form is

dated I862. It is a shame that the op-

portunity was missed of removing all the

white paint covering the corners, for this

would not only have provided a definitive

answer to this question, but might have

told us something of the relationship

between the picture and the fragment

painted on wood (No.I o, Wildenstein

No.314), which has stayed in the family

of Ingres s second wife since his death.

This fragment looks as if it might have

been cut from the right-hand side of the

Marville picture, except that the hands

here bear rings, and the cushion is dark

blue. It might conceivably have formed

a rough enlargement, which was then

detached when Ingres decided to bring

the picture to its present dimensions and

inscribe the circular limit to the com-

position. This hypothesis is rejected on

the grounds that any addition to the

picture must necessarily have been on

canvas, but it is a striking coincidence

that the canvas which marks a second

stage, anterior to Marville , in the

enlargement of the composition has its

right-hand edge just where the wooden

panel would form a natural continuation.

This join, as it became when Ingres

added the final enlarging canvas strip

on the right, is visible to the naked eye,

and shows up clearly on the X-rays.

HRISTOPHER SELLS

Five Centuries of Painting at

Algranti, Milan

This was the sixth exhibition arranged

by Gilberto Algranti at Palazzo Serbelloni,

Milan, but the first one to include Primi-

tives . In fact, more than one third of the

exhibits (thirty-one altogether) covered

the earlier period of Italian art (fourteenth

to sixteenth century). It is not easy to

secure pictures of the High Renaissance

nowadays; even in Berenson s time, Cin-

quecento pictures did not stay homeless

for long; Algranti s show provided three

of them. The most ambitious one - a

Sacra Conversazione by the young Tintoretto,

published by Rodolfo Pallucchini (La

Giovinezza del Tintoretto, Milan, 1950,

Plate LXVIII), of which an autograph

replica exists in the museum at Berlin - is

slap-dash, strongly manneristic and rather

coarse: as Tintoretto only too often can be.

By contrast, the gentle Madonna and Child

against a dark ground by Gaudenzio

Ferrari reveals a delicacy of pictorial

treatment that comes as a surprise to those

who are more familiar with his frescoes.

The sharp L of the Virgin s nose, the

chubby face of the Christ Child, the in-

dentations of the flesh, correspond to

Gaudenzio s style in the fourth decade of

the century. A panel by Pacchiarotto

formerly in the Repton Collection, repre-

senting the Virgin between St Catherine of

Alexandria and St Sigismund, half-length,

squeezed together like three astonished

onlookers peeping out of a window, is

thoroughly enjoyable for its genuine, if

slightly rustic, naivet6.

What can one say of the other Sienese

panel on show: a Birth of the Virgin

ascribed to Matteo di Giovanni in partner-

ship with Cozzarelli? It is evidently a frag-

ment (67 by 58 cm) of a considerably

larger work and it certainly came out of

Matteo di Giovanni s workshop. Argu-

ments about the extent of workshop

intervention or of Cozzarelli s cooperation

as well as comparison with Cozzarelli s

fragment at Coral Gables seem, however -

at present - utterly useless, because we can

never be sure of what our eyes see in a

picture which once belonged to Baron

Lazzaroni. His pleasure in life was to go

over the old masters he owned with such

fiendish perseverance, that they all ac-

quired the same Lazzaroni quality. The

Algranti panel might even have been fine,

an autograph work by Matteo di Giovanni

- for all we can tell - spoilt along the lower

edge and too well restored: this might

explain the extraordinary shortness and

clumsiness of all the legs. But how are we

to tell what is original in a Lazzaroni

picture?

Slightly rubbed but a welcome addition

to Florentine Quattrocento painting is a

small altar-piece (97 by 57 cm) convin-

cingly ascribed to the Master of the

Adimari Cassoni and datable before the

Madonna in the Collegiata di San Giovanni

Valdarno. In the Virgin, majestically

seated among four small Saints, and in her

massive Son, one can vaguely sense an

echo of Masaccio. Which seems to support

the view put forward by Luciano Bellosi

that this dauber might be identical with

Masaccio s brother, Giovanni called Lo

Scheggia.

The essential qualities of Florentine

Quattrocento painting - simplicity, monu-

mentality, functional line, close study of

nature - delight one s eyes and one s mind

in the admirable, unpublished tondo by

Francesco Botticini (Fig.9 I). Correctly

dated in the catalogue between I470 and

1475, it reflects the influence of Verroc-

chio s workshop in the strong, almost

cubic, head of the Virgin, the metallic

folds of her ample cloak, the Leonardesque

Christ Child lying on the ground. Under

the full impact of the naturalistic school,

Francesco Botticini makes here an am-

bitious attempt at placing the adoring

Mother and her Child in a real landscape.

One can easily recognize the view of

Florence which can be enjoyed, to this

day, from the road above Candeli towards

Villamagna: a view which inspired no less

an artist than Antonio Pollajuolo, and

which appears also in Botticini s Assump-

tion (National Gallery, London, No. I126)

on the left. But this real view underlines

the artificiality of the rock formation

devised to relate the sculptural group of

Mother and Child to the far distance.

His incapacity to work out a gradual

and natural transition from fore- to back-

ground is overcome by Botticini success-

fully only once. In The Three Archangels

with Tobias of the Uffizi the lack of any

middle distance is acceptable because the

figures are shown walking on a high road

of a steep hill. But even in the celebrated

Pitti tondo of the Virgin and Child surrounded

by Angels, a balustrade and a hedge of

roses clearly separate the group from the

distant horizon: although a greater plausi-

bility is achieved, this is obtained with

props and backdrop, in a wholly theatrical

setting. In the Louvre tondo and in other

mature works, the transition is suggested

with the snakelike curves of a meandering

river and with the circles of terraced hills -

a mechanical device, devoid of poetic

feeling. The Louvre, the Castle Ashby and

the Pitti tondi are all later works - the one

in the Palazzo Pitti being the best - which

sacrifice the noble severity and the rigorous

draughtsmanship of Algranti s earlier

tondo to comply with the taste for graceful

movements and pretty features that pre-

vailed in Florence in the last quarter of

the fifteenth century. The only mature

work by Botticini of equal distinction, of

strong plasticity and splendid design (with

that marvellous rotating movement of the

seated Virgin), is the tondo now owned by

the Cincinnati Museum. The Goettingen

Virgin adoring the Christ Child shows the

elaborate ornamentation and stereotyped

execution that betray the work of assist-

ants. Also the variant belonging to the

Ca d Oro in Venice (Foto Fiorentini 432),

by comparison with this newly-found

tondo, is a conventional workshop produc-

tion.

Rather than waste words on the restored

Madonna between St Lawrence and St John the

Baptist, optimistically ascribed to Dom-

enico Michelino, let us concentrate on the

lucky find of a beautifully preserved, large

altar-piece (205 by 136 cm) recently sold

in France as a work of the Spanish School

and rightly ascribed in the catalogue to

Francesco di Gentile da Fabriano (Fig.86).

Francesco di Gentile is one of those un-

fortunate artists whose name is more

familiar to art historians than his style.

The small representation of his work at the

Crivelli Exhibition in Venice in 1961 was

of little help in enlightening connoisseurs;

and his signed works - the Bust of a routh

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82. Felbrigg, Norfolk. The Cabinet, remodelled by James Paine, 1751. The

landscapes are mainly by Giovanni Battista Busiri (1698-1757). The

larger flower-piece is one of a pair by Karel van Vogelaer.

83. Study of a Woman s Torso with Arms Raised, byJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

Pencil on tracing-paper, 27 by 22 cm. (Musde, Montauban.)

84. Felbrigg, Norfolk. Dining Room designed by James Paine, 1752. The large portraits are of Katherine Windham, and her

father, Sir Joseph Ashe, by Peter Lely. The furniture is Regency.


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