CALVAERT, Denys

This is a compositional sketch, the design of which is based on a picture by Prospero Fontana, the first master of Calvaert.

Cleopatra, bitten on her breast by an asp, and naked but for a heavy red fabric, appears - as she might on stage - as the model of a tragic heroine. The dynamic pose of her almost life-size body reflects a study of Michelangelo’s work.

Several drawings after works by other artists are known among Calvaert’s drawing oeuvre, including the present black chalk drawing. The painting that served as the model for Calvaert’s work was executed by Lorenzo Sabatini. The drawing is not a simple copy of the painting since Calvaert made significant changes. He revised Sabatini’s ideal of beauty by drawing a younger, less corpulent and more nicely proportioned female nude.

In this composition, Denys Calvaert employs vivid colours and sharp contrasts to dynamically illustrate the New Testament account of St Paul’s conversion.

This drawing was a preparatory work for another composition, presumably an engraving, but no engraving that could have been based on this preliminary composition is known.

This drawing has been linked by many scholars to Calvaert’s painting in Edinburgh. However, it is closer to a painting in Genoa.

In 1560, Calvaert moved to Bologna, where he was influenced by the work of Parmigianino and Correggio. After a three-year stay in Rome his style matured and he was increasingly influenced by the work of Barocci, all the while maintaining a Mannerist aesthetic even after it fell out of fashion. The present Holy Family is characteristic of Calvaert’s post-Roman style and clearly reveals Barocci’s influence.

Calvaert’s skill in rendering religious themes can be traced back to his Netherlandish roots, while the way in which he was able to express subtlety of emotion can be derived from the inspiration he drew from Correggio’s and Barocci’s works.

Calvaert was born in Antwerp, but travelled to Italy in about 1560, where he remained for the rest of his life, and chiefly worked on religious commissions. In Bologna he played an especially important role as a teacher for the next generation of Italian artists: Guido Rent, Francesco Albani and Domenichino were among his pupils.

This is a characteristic example of Calvaert’s small devotional paintings, of a type that he produced in large numbers. The Holy Family is accompanied by the infant Saint John, at the lower left, who holds a reed cross and receives Christ’s blessing. They are at rest during the Flight into Egypt, and attendant angels provide fruit and spring water to sustain them. Above the mountainous landscape, a premonition of Christ’s Passion appears: putti carry the cross and nails and the column on which he is to be scourged. The smooth sheet of copper provided an ideal surface upon which to depict such a detailed and richly coloured design.

The painting is monogrammed and dated “DC 1592” at lower centre. An engraving, reversing the image, was made by Philippe Thomassin in 1592. However, the engraving differs from the painting in a number of respects.

Denys Calvaert focused almost exclusively on religious scenes and while he produced some excellent life-size altarpieces, he was arguably at his best when working on a smaller format, particularly on copper. This signed and dated example depicts the Virgin and Child with Sts Catherine, Dominic and the Infant St John the Baptist, a landscape beyond. It is from the artist’s most successful period and includes all his most admired features: vibrant colours, movement and pathos in the figures, sharp foreshortening, and the landscape upper right, which extends all the way to the horizon.

The painting is signed and dated upper left: 1592 / DIONISIO CALV…RT / FIANDERESE.

This detail shows the artist’s most admired features: vibrant colours, movement and pathos in the figures, sharp foreshortening, and the landscape upper right, which extends all the way to the horizon.

This composition can be fundamentally derived from Leonardo’s cartoon in London, which became very popular and to which works by Raphael and the painters in his circle can be linked. Calvaert was significantly influenced by the works of Raphael and his students during his period in Rome as manifested by his copies made after them.