Veronese, Callet and the Black Boy at the Feast Author(s): Elizabeth McGrath Reviewed work(s): Source: Journal

of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 61 (1998), pp. 272-276 Published by: The Warburg Institute Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/751256 . Accessed: 30/10/2012 13:18
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272

NOTES VERONESE, CALLET AND THE BLACK BOY AT THE FEAST* Veronese's oeuvreis a drawing of a black boy eating at a table (Fig. 107).' The boy is furnished with a plate and knife and sucks at a fruit while glancing up towards the light which floods over his face. The association with Veronese, first made by Detlev von Hadeln,2 stems not only from perceived analogies with two other drawings of heads of blacks, one connected with a specific painting by the artist,3 but also from a supposed affinity with the black figures painted by
* This Note is essentially an overgrown footnote to the 16th- and 17th-century volume of TheImage of the Black in Western Art, sponsored by the Menil Foundation, on which I am at present working. In fact it depends on an observation made by the editor of the project, Ladislas Bugner, and generously passed on to me. For that, and all his help, my special thanks. I am also most grateful to Brigitte Gallini, who is preparing a catalogue raisonne of Callet, for not only answering many questions on the artist but sending me relevant, unpublished material from her files, and to Pierre Rosenberg and Paul Taylor for their suggestions. 1 Whereabouts unknown; 15.5 x 19 cm. See R. Cocke, p. 307, no. 135 (illus.), expressing doubts, but concluding that the attribution seems 'plausible'. It was sold at Sotheby's 10 May 1961, lot 29 (previously Sotheby's, 9 June 1955, lot 13; collection Archibald G. B. Russell [1927]: the collector's mark on the bottom left is Russell's).
2 D. Freiherr von Hadeln, The Vasari Society for the Reproduction of Drawings by Old and Modern Masters, 2nd Veronese's Drawings. A Catalogue Raisonne, London 1984,

In this otherwise conventional description, one feature appears to be unusual, namely the object Envy holds in her hand. In Alciati's epigram, it is described as 'a thorny staff'.13 According to the commentary written by Claude Mignault and printed along with Alciati's text in almost all editions from the early 1570s, and thus probably available to Hoefnagel, the phrase refers to Malediction, Calumny or Slander, i.e. to the negative sideeffects of Envy.14In her pioneering study of the emblematic elements in Hoefnagel's work, Thea Vignau-Wilberg interpreted the signature as an allegorical representation of how Hoefnagel faces up to the buffeting of Fate in the persons of Stupidity and Envy, and has his character formed by the experience.'5 In the light of Alciati's emblems, this interpretation can be slightly revised: the artist's personality is being forged by blows struck by Avarice and (maledictory) Envy. Previous research has abundantly demonstrated that Hoefnagel's knowledge of emblematics was unrivaled among sixteenthcentury artists. Such is certainly attested in the complex imagery of his 'emblematic' signature-a visual concept undoubtedly worthy of the 'title' the artist coined for himself: 'inventor hieroglyphicus et allegoricus'.
LUBOMiR KONEC(NY CHARLESUNIVERSITY,PRAGUE
y 2 de Octubre de 1991), Teruel 1994, pp. 305-32
13

odged uncertainly on the margin of

(308-9).

This is pictured more clearly in some editions than others: e.g. in the comprehensive Padua 1621 edition. 14 'Hoc referendum est ad aculeatam invidiorum maledictiam.' See e.g. Alciati 1577 (as in n. 10), p. 273. Mignault refers here to Ovid's description of Envy in ii.789: 'Baculumque capit, quod spinea Metamorphoses, tortum vincula cingebant'; thus constructing the phrase 'baculum tortum' (a twisted staff) instead of the standard modern reading 'baculum totum'. This difference notwithstanding, Alciati's word 'tela' (weapons) seems to have been understood by Mignault as 'baculum' (staff), and, thus, admittedly also by Hoefnagel. This explanation was taken over by Joannes Thuilius in his monumental commentary in the editio optima of 1621. Needless to say, the object looks quite different in different editions of Alciati's book. In the 1577 printing (Fig, 105) the phrase was still understood as meaning an object similar to a standard Herculean club. 15 'Hoefnagel wird vom Schicksal in der Gestalt der Dummheit und Neides getroffen, wird aber durch die Schlige geformt.' Wilberg Vignau-Schuurman, Emblematischen Elemente (as in n. 3), p. 258.

ser., viii, Oxford 1927, p. 7, pl. 4; his attribution was disputed by H. Tietze and E. Tietze-Conrat, TheDrawings York 1944, p. 347, no. A 2109, pl. CXCVI, commenting, 'The whole realistic motive conforms better to the Bolognese School'. The drawing is presented as a work questionably attributed to Veronese, yet treated as a type of genre scene that could have influenced Caravaggio in W. Friedlinder, CaravaggioStudies,Princeton 1955, pp. 53-4, fig. 39. A similar view is found in D. Posner, around 1590, 2 vols, London and New York 1971, i, p. 20, where the 'drawing of a boy eating fruit sometimes ascribed to Veronese' becomes an instance of 'North Italian naturalistic pictorial [notation]'. 3 Cocke (as in n. 1), pp. 136-7, no. 54, a downturned head (Paris, Louvre) drawn with heavy hatching in black and red chalk, corresponding to the torch-bearer at the lower left of the Miracleof St Barnabas(Musee des BeauxArts, Rouen); and pp. 164-5, no. 68, an upturned head
Annibale Carracci. A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries, New

Volume 61, 1998 and CourtauldInstitutes, Journal of the Warburg

THE BLACK BOY AT THE FEAST Veronese, especially the little page-boys who enliven the great biblical Feasts, often marking out significant groups and details. Whatever the respective merits of the attribution to Veronese of the two drawings of heads-quite different one from another in

273

Moreover, the subject, far from conforming easily to Veronese's mode of representing blacks, reverses all expectations in showing the boy seated at rather than standing by the table, eating rather than serving. Some commentators have taken account of this to the

low 10.
74-

un",

Ay

07 Ad.

..

Fig. 107-Study of a boy at table, drawing. Whereabouts unknown

would be rare enough to find examples of

already points up the singularity of the sheet showing the boy seated at table (Fig. 107). It the artist drawing heads from life for use in narrative compositions; but to encounter a study by Veronese which purports to record a live model posed in exactly the attitude and situation intended for a projected painting of this type is altogether unexpected.5

technique and character4--the comparison

extent of associating the theme with Bolognese naturalism, scenes of genre and low life.6 In so doing they effectively distance the study from Veronese, but force the boy into

uncomfortable companionship with Annibale Carracci's slurping Bean-eater,' or-if we look specifically for black figures-the

exaggerated 'comic' crudities of Bartolomeo

Passarotti.8 The boy's somewhat delicate air and distracted mood surely point to an
rather than a study for, the painting: T. Pignatti, Veronese. 2 vols, Venice 1976, i, p. 132, under no. L'operacompleta, 162. Certainly there is no really convincing parallel to this heavily-worked sheet among the secure drawings of Veronese. 5 Von Hadeln (as in n. 2) evades the issue, simply calling it 'an admirable example of Veronese's rare studies from the living model'. 6 See, for example, n. 2 above. 7 Rome, Galleria Colonna. See Posner (as in n. 2), i, pp. 19-20, and ii, p. 5, no. 8. Comparison is regularly made with this painting in the literature. 8 In the so-called MerryCompany(Paris, private collection), a black couple is displayed among the grotesque group ranged at a sort of table, or behind a shelf. See C.

of a youth (whereabouts unknown), shaded only lightly and strongly illuminated, and not specifically related to any known picture. 4 See previous note. The upturned head was dismissed as a work of Veronese by Tietze and Tietze-Conrat (as in n. 2, p. 347, no. A 2108, pl. CXCVI), and indeed seems problematic; unlike Cocke, I find no very close resemblance to any black figure painted by Veronese. The other head in the Louvre was likewise considered doubtful by the Tietzes (op. cit., p. 349, no. A 2133), who did not, however, appreciate the relationship to the altarpiece in Rouen: for this see P. Rosenberg in Le XVIesi?cle Peintureset Dessins dans les Collections europ~en. Publiques exhib. cat., Paris 1965, p. 254, under no. 312. Frangaises,
Still, it has been suggested that it might be a copy after,

274

NOTES

JK

:,:::--,::

AMOUR

A A

Paris, Musee du Louvre Fig. 108-Antoine-Francois Callet, TheSaturnalia, or Winter.

altogether different thematic and stylistic context. In fact the drawing is for a picture by the French Academician, Antoine-Francois Callet (1741-1823), which illustrates the celebration of the Roman Saturnalia (Figs 108, 109).9
Passarotti(1529-1592), 2 vols, Worms H6per, Bartolomeo 1987, ii, pp. 88-9, no. G 96, pl. 21b; A. Ghirardi, Bartolomeo Passarotti, pittore (1529-1592), Rimini 1990, pp. 225-9, no. 59. 9 Paris, Louvre, inv. 3100. See P. Rosenberg, N. Reynaud and I. Compin, Muskedu Louvre.Catalogueillussiecles,2 vols, tr4desPeintures. Ecolefrangaise, XVIIeet XVIIIe Paris 1974, i, p. 50, no. 84 (repr.) and p. 260. Most of the published drawings by Callet are sketches or designs for

Entitled Les Saturnales ou l'Hiver, this painting was designed to serve as one of the tapestry cartoons in a series on the familiar Gobelins theme of the Seasons-for once, however, in allegorical figures or not represented stories from classical mythology, but with
entire compositions, rather than groups or figures. See E. Scheyer, 'French Drawings of the Great Revolution and the Napoleonic Era', Art Quarterly, vi, 1941, pp. 1934, figs 5-6; P. Bjurstr6m, FrenchDrawings.EighteenthCentury, Stockholm 1982, nos 872-3 (one a Bacchanal); B. Gallini, 'Les esquisses d'Antoine-Franoois Callet (1741deFrance,xxxiii, 1983, 1823) ', Revuedu Louvreet desMuskes 2, pp. 134-7, esp. fig. 8; eadem, 'Autour du morceau d'agrement d'Antoine-Fran;ois Callet (1741-1823):

THE BLACK BOY AT THE FEAST

ancient festivals from the annual cycle.1' It was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1783, accompanied by the following description: Ces Fetes chez les Romains se c6l6broient dans le mois de Decembre en l'honneur de Saturne; les maitres servoient leurs esclaves, & le peuple se livroit pendant quinze jours a toutes sortes de debauches."1

275

extended, after the additions made by Julius Caesar and then Caligula, it went on for no more than five (or seven by merging into the two-day Sigillaria, when presents of little I suspect the artist images were exchanged).1 was influenced by the twelve days of Christmas which supplanted the pagan feast. Still,

Mv.

14

Fig. 109-Antoine-Fran<ois Callet, The Saturnalia, or Winter,detail

A fortnight of debauchery is longer than any of the classical sources allow: originally the Saturnalia lasted only one day (Catullus's optimus dierum);12 and even at its most

the details of the painting are studiously authentic enough. The Saturnalia was indeed the occasion when, in a carnavalesque parody of the fabled egalitarianism of the Age of

paintings, Spring, was exhibited at the Salon. See M. elaboration d'une oeuvre et redecouverte d'une esquisse au musee de Quimper', Revue du Louvreet des Musies de Fenaille, Etat g ndral des tapisseriesde la manufacturedes France,xliii, 1993, 2, pp. 52-7, esp. figs 2-3. B. Gallini, Gobelins...,iv (Dix-huitieme 2), Paris 1907, pp. 362-7, sikcle, 'La participation d'Antoine-Francois Callet au decor no. XVIII. peint du Senat 1803-1807', Bulletin de la Socidt? de'Histoire 11 Explication des peintures, sculptures et gravures de de l'artFrangais,1992, pp. 169-78, fig. 15, illustrates one Messieursde l'Acadimie Royale,Paris 1783, p. 28, no. 85 in Collectiondes livrets des anciennes expositionsdepuis 1673 drawing which is a figure study, but this dates from a relatively late stage in the artist's career. However, Mme jusqu'en 1800, Paris 1870. 12 Catullus, Carmina,xiv.15. Gallini has kindly shown me drawings for individual 13 This is already clarified inJustus Lipsius, Saturnalium figures made from posed models which are comparable in style to the present sheet (Fig. 107), and she accepts sermonumlibri duo, edn Antwerp 1604, pp. 15-19, citing this latter as a study by Callet. the classical sources. Among these, see esp. Horace, 10 The painting of the Bacchanal,for Autumn, exhibited Satires,ii.7; Macrobius, Saturnalia, i.10; Martial, Epigramin 1787, is also in the Louvre (Rosenberg et al., as in n. 9, mata, iv.88, vii.53, xiv.79, xiv.141. On the Saturnalia see also Alexander ab Alexandro, Genialesdies, edn Leiden p. 51, no. 85 and p. 260); Spring (HomagetoJuno Lucina) and Summer (The Feast of Ceres)are in the Musee des a 1673, i, pp. 461-2; Bernard de Montfaucon, SuppMment et reprisent&e enfigures..., i.1, Paris 1724, Beaux-Arts, Amiens. Callet received the commission in l'antiquitW expliqu~e 1781, and the first weaving of the series was carried out pp. 11-12. between 1788 and 1791, the date when the last of the

276

NOTES Paintings of subjects from ancient history made in France in the 1780s have regularly been scrutinised by scholars for suggestive details, images that might be taken as symptoms or signals of the coming Revolution. Whatever Callet's original intention-and the picture was, after all, a royal commission'8 -his Saturnalian festival, with its liberated slaves and prominent liberty cap, seems temptingly amenable to this sort of interpretation. Given that enlighted ideas on liberty and servitude had begun to extend to blacks with the publication in 1781 of Condorcet's denunciation of African slavery,19 it might even seem that the black youth would have had a particular resonance for some contemporary viewers. Significantly, he appears more hesitant and uneasy than any of his fellows about his altered Saturnalian state, remaining attached to his mistress in a fixed habit of service and devotion. As a result-and more effectively than any white servant could have done-this black slave becomes the lady's identifying attribute; in the midst of the temporary feast, he betokens and bears witness to the continuing realities of despotic power.
ELIZABETHMcGRATH WARBURGINSTITUTE

Saturn, slaves briefly exchanged places with their masters,'4assuming symbolic if not real caps of liberty, and with them freedom of speech and the right to be served at table. Most of Callet's slaves turned masters look perfectly relaxed in their transient situation -notably the cheerful drinking couple in the foreground, with the man sporting a jaunty pileus;'"and the background is given over to dancing with garlands around an image of the infant-devouring Saturn. The black youth (for the boy of the painting looks rather older than his counterpart in the drawing) belongs to the group in the middle ground (Fig. 109), for the most part drunk, which is being entertained by a muscular, shaven-headed musician (a borrowed galleyat Marseilles). In attendance is a decorous young woman who is presumably the mistress of the house; she looks with indulgence at the befuddled concentration with which one of her maidservants scrabbles about in a basket of bread. But the black figure nearby glances up towards the lady with a certain nervous attention. He might simply be imagined as relatively sober, or again as a newcomer to Rome and Roman customs, unfamiliar with Saturnalian reversals. Probably, however, his pose and attitude reflect the fact that the artist envisaged him as the mistress's particular attendant, her devoted personal servant. And if Callet could certainly have found references in classical literature to Roman ladies who had their own black slaves,'6 I suspect that he was as much influenced by modern as by ancient practice, specifically the pictorial convention of the black page who at once admires and pays tribute to his white mistress.17
14 See esp. Macrobius, Saturnalia, i.7.37, 11.1, 12.7, 24.22; Justin, Epitome,xliii.1.3-4; Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, xiv.369B; Dio Cassius, Roman History, lx.19; Ausonius, Deferiis, 15. Cf. Lipsius (as in n. 13), pp. 10-11. 15 One of the dancing men in the background also has a liberty cap. On the wearing of the pileus by slaves at the Saturnalia see Martial, Epigrammata, xiv.1; Seneca, Epistles,xviii. 16 Examples of such references are conveniently gathered in Lorenzo Pignoria, De servis,edn Padua 1656, p. 205. 17 For this tradition see P. H. D. Kaplan, 'Titian's Laura Dianti and the Origin of the Motif of the Black Page in Portraiture', Antichita viva, xxi.1, 1982, pp. 11-18, and xxi.4, 1982, pp. 10-18; Marysa Otte, "'Somtitjs een

slave from Rubens's Arrival of Marie de' Medici

Moor". De neger als bijfiguur op Nederlandse portretten in de zevetiende en achtiende eeuw', Kunstlicht, viii, 1987, pp. 6-10; also J. M. Massing, 'From Greek Proverb to Soap Advert: Washing the Ethiopian', this Journal, lviii, 1995, pp. 190, 192-4; fig. 63 shows a print of 1706 after a picture by Hyacinthe Rigaud which bears a telling inscription. It is interesting to note that in Callet's final picture (Figs 108-9) the boy in the drawing (Fig. 107) has been assimilated more to this sort of image of the courtly page, acquiring interalia a pearl earring. 19Joachim Schwartz [=Marquis de Condorcet], Reflexions sur l'esclavage des negres, Neufchaitel 1781; cf. H. Art. IV, CamHonour, The Image of the Black in Western bridge, Mass. and London 1989, i, p. 36.
18 See above, n. 10.