VOUET, Simon

The attribution of this painting is debated, the painter could be a student of Vouet’s workshop in Rome. The closeness between the Vouet Magdalene (in the same museum) and the figure in the foreground of this allegory is strong enough to make it probable that the execution of these two figures was done by the same hand, or at the very least by the same workshop. It could be connected with both Simon Vouet, or alternately to the anonymous “Brother of Cavalier Muti” who vanished from the Roman scene immediately after the return of Vouet to France.

The subject, clearly celebrating the Barberini family, may well have been suggested by Francesco Bracciolini, the mind behind the iconographic program of the great Divine Providence vault cycle that Pietro da Cortona frescoed in the Palazzo Barberini.

Vouet executed this painting for the walls of Château Neuf de Saint-Germain-en Laye.

The fleshly opulence and joyful colouring of Simon Vouet made him, to some extent, a French Rubens. On his return from Rome in 1627 he became Court Painter to Louis XIII and was the founder of that tradition of decorative panting which Le Brun developed.

The conception is on a subtle diagonal from the window down Mary’s red robe, echoed by the bodies of the hovering large angels. Mary hears, but does not see, the archangel Gabriel.

This oil sketch depicting the Assembly of the Gods is related to Vouet’s design for the ceiling of the Gallery of Ulysses at the h�tel de Bullion in Paris. The ceiling was part of a large decorative scheme for the h�tel, also involving the sculptor Jacques Sarazin. As part of the decorations, Vouet painted a series of 24 scenes depicting the adventures of Ulysses. Today, neither the h�tel nor any of the finished paintings are extant.

The French Simon Vouet triumphed in Rome by becoming president of the Academy of St Luke in 1627. He painted the Birth of the Virgin for the San Francesco a Ripa with an uncommonly powerful sense of composition.

During his first visit to Rome Vouet seems to have produced many paintings in a picturesque style, either of swaggering bravo figures, or portraits in the same guise. Later he was to take up Charavaggio’s use of chiaroscuro, but in a very personal manner, particularly in the present Birth of the Virgin.

Birth of the Virgin is an unusually original version of Caravaggio’s style, novel in its broad, low composition, bold in its foreshortenings, and striking in its handling of drapery. It reveals a curios feature of the artist’s style at this period, for one detail, the head of the maidservant in the middle is taken directly from Michelangelo.

The painting was executed in Rome and transferred to Genoa where Vouet spent a year in the service of Paolo Orsini and the Doria family. His stay in Genoa, and above all the contact with Orazio Gentileschi who was also there, resulted in a change in the style of Vouet: he abandoned Caravaggism and turned towards a pure Baroque style.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 (excerpts)

Signed and dated on the quiver in the lower right corner: Simon Vouet F. Paris 1637 (the date has previously been incorrectly read as 1627).

The artist had been a leading painter in Rome and in 1624 was elected President of the Accademia di San Luca. His style there oscillated between the Caravaggesque, Roman baroque and Bolognese classicism. On his return to Paris he gained a reputation as a decorative artist, indulging in skilful displays of illusionistic painting including the ceiling of the principal room in the château at Colombes where Henrietta Maria (the wife of Charles I) lived from 1657. Vouet was undoubtedly the most influential artist of his generation in France (beside Poussin who spent much of his life in Rome) and was active in establishing the Acad�mie des Beaux-Arts in 1648, one year before his death.

Diana is in Vouet’s late, more classical style. The idealised expression of the face with its widely spaced features, the languid gesture, and the slow, ponderous rhythms combined with the pale flesh tones and light colours of the drapery are typical of the artist’s decorative work. The composition was originally oval, as seen in an engraving of 1638 by Vouet’s son-in-law, Michel Dorigny. With this knowledge the internal rhythms of the painting become more comprehensible, with the curve created by the reclining figure of the goddess of hunting continued in the muzzles of the two dogs pointing in opposite directions.

Dorigny also engraved two other oval compositions in 1638, Venus and Adonis and Mars and Venus, which could have formed a series with the present painting. The pose is reminiscent of Venetian painting (for example, Venus and Cupid by Palma Vecchio - Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum). Vouet had visited Venice in ¹⁶¹²⁄₁₃, but evidence of his interest in Venetian art resurfaces in several of the decorative schemes undertaken after 1627, especially in his masterpiece in the Hotel Seguier, Paris. There is also an affinity with Primaticcio’s work carried out at Fontainebleau for Francis I at the beginning of the sixteenth century, which was widely known through engravings.

The drawing shows astonished satyrs (representing lack of culture) examining an enormous cylinder on the table: what had been a sort of flat map is anamorphically reflected as an elephant.

This charming representation of Euterpe orignally formed part of a dispersed series depicting the nine Muses which was most likely painted for a learned man familiar with Ancient Greek and Renaissance literature.

In 1627 Vouet returned from Italy and brought back to Paris a certain familiarity with a number of novelties and sksills and conventions which found an echo. He was an Italianate, however, not truly Baroque.

This painting belonged to the Galerie des Hommes Illustres (demolished) that Cardinal Richelieu had installed in the Palais-Cardinal (today Palais-Royal). The execution of the twenty-five portraits of illustrious personalities in the history of France selected by the cardinal was entrusted to Simon Vouet and Philippe de Champaigne.

This tapestry, woven in Paris or Amiens, is from the series of ‘The Loves of the Gods.’ It is with Jupiter disguised as Diana and Callisto flanked by Cupid and an eagle emblematic of Jupiter, within a wooded landscape and a floral and fruiting border with blue ribbon and biblical medallions and egg-and-dart molding, areas of re-weaving.

It was made after a design of Simon Vouet.

The painting was part of a series executed for decorations, the other panels (Urania and Calliope; Polyhimnia; Euterpe) are in French and German museums.

Apollo Musagetes, the leader of the Muses, fills his role in this painting as a “kitharodos” or a singer accompanied by a kithara. He is playing a finely-arched, six-stringed lyre with a very small sound-box, just like the one imagined since the early Renaissance to resemble the instrument of the classical gods. Apollo wears a laurel wreath and, surrounded by the nine Muses, is engrossed in playing his music on Parnassus. The Muses, according to the classical ideal of beauty, are full-figured females; their spiritual substance is expressed by their melancholic expressions. The painter emphasizes the fact that they are related, although each of them can be identified on the basis of small details.

There are a number of musical instruments among their attributes: for example, Polyhymnia sits in the right-hand group, facing the viewer, wearing a flowery wreath, holding a papyrus scroll, and resting her right hand on the reverse side of a lute, while in the left rear, embraced by Terpsichore, we can recognize Euterpe, holding a flute in her left hand. The symbols contain the duality of the exalted, laudatory poetry and the sensual, entertaining lyricism. The other Muses are from left to right: Erato, the “awakener of desire”; Melpomene, the “singer”; Thalia, the “ceremonial”; Calliope, the “fine-voiced”; on the right side, next to Polyhymnia, Urania, the “heavenly”; and Clio, the “glorifier”. Of course the original meanings of the Greek names express only part of those qualities which have since been attached to the Muses, who know the secrets of the universe.

Simon Vouet’s frieze-like painting, intended to be viewed from a low angle, was probably part of a decorative series of panels. Accordingly, its style is characterized by a calculated harmony of colours and forms. It is a fine example of the balanced, Classicist spirit of French Baroque painting.

The picture shows the central figure of the painting. Apollo Musagetes, the leader of the Muses fills his role as a “ kitharodos” or a siger accompanied by a kithara. He is playing a finely arched, six-stringed lyre with a very small sound box, just like the one imagined since the early Renaissance to resemble the instrument of the classical gods.

The detail shows the group of the Muses: Melpomene and Kalliope resting on books, behind them Thalia and the embracing Terpsichore and Euterpe. In the background on the left Pegasus can be seen.

This portrait, depicting a gentleman, bust-length, in a painted oval, dates from Vouet’s Italian period. While the identity of the sitter is unknown, Vouet captures the man with a profound empathy and spirit. His heavy eyelids and strong cheekbones are emphasized by the dramatic lighting, evidence of the continued popularity of Caravaggism in Rome.

The sitter’s heavy eyelids and strong cheekbones are emphasized by the dramatic lighting, evidence of the continued popularity of Caravaggism in Rome.

This portrait is dated to shortly after Vouet’s return to Paris from Italy at the end of 1627. It is one of the very first works in which the painter sought out a new style to adapt himself to French trends. The physical appearance of the sitter is a type that was fashionable at the court of Louis XIII.

This portrait was executed in Rome. Vouet’s early Roman portraits, like the present example, are animated and moody, governed by an effective use of chiaroscuro, the dark areas often nearly black, the highlights rich in white, creamy paint.

Simon Vouet arrived in Paris in 1627, having already pursued a successful career in Rome. His art seems to have appealed immediately to Louis XIII, who gave him more commissions than he accorded other artists. Vouet’s main achievement was in bringing a fully developed Baroque style back from Italy, which shows his extraordinary ability to change direction: he had been totally preoccupied with Caravaggism in his Roman years. He must, however, have been absorbing all the fashionable trends in Rome (Caravaggism had already become old-fashioned among Italian painters in the 1620s), and he was able to bring them almost unadulterated to the court of Louis XIII.

The Parisian court’s preoccupation with foreign styles of painting was already obvious, and Vouet, although a Frenchman, found that he could provide an up-to-date approach to what the court wanted without any local rivals. The combination of Italian influences is seen to perfection in his Presentation in the Temple, one of the most Baroque of all Vouet’s compositions, given by Cardinal Richelieu to the Jesuit church in Paris. Only certain of the facial expressions suggest that the picture might not be Italian. In scale and composition it is a flawless altarpiece of the type then being commissioned for newly decorated or reconstructed churches all over Rome. The main influences in the picture are derived from the cool order of Domenichino and the much softer, more sensual approach of Guido Reni, and in it Vouet reached the level of accomplishment found in the work of Orazio Gentileschi, who had been working successfully for the Parisian court for two years.

This tapestry belongs to a set of 10 tapestries made in Paris in the Faubourg Saint-Germain tapestry workshop on the rue de la Chaise, which was active from 1633 to 1668. They were woven in wool and silk around 1633-1637 under the direction of Raphael de la Planche, after designs painted by Simon Vouet, the premier peintre du roi, or first painter to the king.

The tapestries tell the story of Rinaldo and Armida from Tarquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), published in 1581. The literary work is an epic poem that commemorates and mythologizes the first crusade of 1095-99 when Christian knights, led by Godfry de Bouillon (c.1058-1100), relieved Jerusalem from Saracen control.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

George Frideric Handel: Two arias, Rinaldo, Acts II and III

This tapestry belongs to a set of 10 tapestries made in Paris in the Faubourg Saint-Germain tapestry workshop on the rue de la Chaise, which was active from 1633 to 1668. They were woven in wool and silk around 1633-1637 under the direction of Raphael de la Planche, after designs painted by Simon Vouet, the premier peintre du roi, or first painter to the king.

The tapestries tell the story of Rinaldo and Armida from Tarquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), published in 1581. The literary work is an epic poem that commemorates and mythologizes the first crusade of 1095-99 when Christian knights, led by Godfry de Bouillon (c.1058-1100), relieved Jerusalem from Saracen control.

Like his great compatriots, Poussin and Claude, the Parisian Simon Vouet began his career in Italy. His early works reflect the influence of Caravaggio and Lanfranco; Baroque animation, heavy forms and dramatic contrast of light and shadow are characteristic of the paintings he produced in Rome and Naples. In 1627 Vouet returned to France to become one of the leading masters and a favourite painter of official circles. He gradually adapted his subjects and style to suit the new requirements, painting decorative compositions for the palaces in Paris and for castles in the country. They were usually allegorical or mythological compositions with noble and pure forms rendered with light colours and harmonious lines.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Francesco Gasparini: The Meddlesome Cupid, aria

This early self-portrait shows Vouet’s intuitive talent for capturing transitory effects. This illustration of a moment in which time is suspended and one can almost sense the breath on the sitter’s lip was an evolution of the naturalism found in the early work of Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio.

The attribution to Vouet is doubtful, probably the painting was executed by one of the assidstants in the workshop of Vouet.

The subject of this history painting is drawn from Livy’s Historia ab urbe condita. Sophonisba was the daughter of a Carthaginian general at the time of the second Punic war. She married a prince of neighbouring Numidia, allied to Rome, and succeeded in alienating him from his Roman masters. But he was captured by another Numidian leader Masinissa, who in turn fell in love with Sophonisba, and likewise married her. To prevent the loss of a second ally from the same cause the Roman general Scipio demanded that she be surrendered and sent captive to Rome. Her husband, not daring to defy Scipio, sent her a cup of poison which she drank.

The painting shows this dramatic last moment in the life of the young woman. Ermine robe and radiant crown denote her queenly rank. An elderly maid behind her, conscious of impending tragedy, gazes upward despairingly. In the background is a landscape with a dramatically illuminated evening sky. The painting was done in Rome, where Vouet had been living since 1613. The drama of the situation finds emphatic expression not only in the expressive eye-contact and the swirling detail of the figures, but also in the vigorous contrasts of lighting which put the heroine at the centre of the action.

Simon Vouet was the most versatile of all the French painters in Rome in the 1620s. His earliest pictures are the closest to those of Caravaggio, but his art lacked almost all Caravaggio’s sense of drama. Instead, he concentrated on flashy and facile effects, which were, of course, to stand him in good stead at the court of Louis XIII, where he was to become the first French painter to be able to understand and interpret the Italian Baroque. He was good at lighting effects and sharp contrasts of colour. An example of this is the St Jerome and the Angel. This painting is devoid of the drama which marks Caravaggio’s St Matthew and the Angel, Vouet relied much more on his technique of strong lighting and bold brushwork, and was never interested in penetrating the essence of his subject-matter.

Executed during Vouet’s long sojourn in Rome, St Jerome and the Angel, with its extreme contrasts of light and dark, bare interior setting, and three-quarter-length format, has been recognized as one of Vouet’s most Caravaggesque works. Vouet’s angel, a tousled urchin encumbered by voluminous robes, is an insistently robust, physical presence in the tradition of Caravaggio. The obvious comparison with Caravaggio’s first version of the Inspiration of St Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel and his St Jerome Writing demonstrate both Vouet’s debt to Caravaggio and his independence from the older artist.

This painting, formerly given to Pomarancio, has been reattributed to Simon Vouet. It may perhaps be identifiable with the Magdalene cited with an attribution to Sacchi in the 1648-49 inventory of the Palazzo Barberini at Monterotondo.

The painting, which shows some stylistic and typological connections with the Vouet’s David in Palazzo Bianco in Genoa, could date from the years (c. 1623-27) in which the French artist was in close contact with the Barberini, ending with his departure for France. Though the canvas is certainly rich in Caravaggesque qualities, Vouet is already showing himself as a full participant in the new classicism that was on the rise in the Roman art scene. At the same time he also shows signs of sympathy with the first fully baroque works that were being created in Rome.

This painting poses interesting problems on account of its close compositional connections to the Magdalene by Guido Reni, dated to 1631-32 (also in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome). The cut of the scene anticipates the composition that Vouet adopted for his Portrait of Gaucher de Chatillon (Louvre, Paris), carried out for the Palace of Cardinal Richelieu between 1633 and 1634. Dominated by the monumental figure of the Magdalene, the picture opens out to a luxuriant perspectival landscape view in the left background. Another highly interesting element is the close stylistic analogy between the Magdalene and Vouet’s Allegory of Peace, that was also in the Barberini collection (also in the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome). As the Allegory has been attributed to an anonymous brother of the Cavalier Muti (a student of Vouet and Claude Mellan), the similarities between the two pictures lead to basic questions about the true authorship of this extraordinary painting.

On the back of the canvas, in capital letters, is the following inscription: “aegiptia. vulgo. zingara. fatvi. cerdonis. divinatrix. a. Simoe. Voet. ad. vivum. depicta. MCDXVII” - (The Egyptian woman, (called) commonly “the gypsy, fortuneteller of the foolish artisan”, painted from life by Simon Vouet 1617)

This painting was once considered to be a copy of another painting of similar measurements and subject, preserved in Florence (Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti) with an attribution to Antiveduto della Gramatica or Bartolomeo Manfredi. Recently, however, the painting has been reattributed to Simon Vouet on the basis of the lengthy inscription found on the back of the canvas during restoration. Examination of the Barberini picture also revealed a series of substantial pentimenti (repainted passages), especially in the young man’s clothing, that confirm that this is the original and that the Florentine painting must be a copy.

The large capital letters of the inscription and its content also confirm that the work was in the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. A Francophile who was always connected to French interests in Rome, Cassiano commissioned the painting in 1617 directly from the young Vouet. This is the moment in which Vouet, painter to the King of France, is first documented as active in Rome. Among the works sold in the sale of the dal Pozzo heirs, the painting resurfaced at the end of the eighteenth century in the Torlonia Collection. From there it passed into the holdings of the National Gallery.

The simplicity of the composition, which includes only three half figures, derives from the Caravaggesque prototypes that Vouet would have been able to see in the collection of Cassiano’s friend Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. Likewise, the situation of the spotlit figures in a shadowy space and the intense exchange of gazes between the two younger people recall the works of Caravaggio. On the other hand, though, the distinct interpretation of Caravaggesque style attests to the profound influence on Vouet of the manner of Manfredi, then at the apex of his own career. Manfredian style is evident in the rich and surprisingly intact pictorial material, the agility of brushwork, and the extraordinary mastery of pictorial rendering. These qualities, as well as the vivacious chromatic range sustained by the young gypsy’s red sleeve, reveal precociously the powerful characteristics of a great painter.

In contrast to Caravaggio’s two-figure treatment of the same theme, from which this picture clearly derives, Vouet inserts the figure of the old gypsy to the right, whose left hand picks the man’s pocket while her right hand, laid on his shoulder, makes a vulgar gesture. As well known and ancient gesture, the thumb stuck between the first two fingers was particularly common in Tuscany and is even mentioned by Dante in the Divine Comedy. (Inferno XX, 2).

A dark, handsome gypsy tells the fortune of a simpering young woman. Behind her a comic figure steals whatever the gypsy has hidden in her cloak, winking and signaling to an accomplice, who sports a ludicrously feathered fur hat and scraps of tattered finery. He points to the gypsy’s victim, but she, despite her foolish look, seems to win the day, as she gestures toward the spectator, and invites him to enjoy the spectacle of the deceiver deceived.

Vouet’s painting, with its three-quarter length figures, owes much to Caravaggio and Manfredi, but it is more farcical in tone.

The situation of the spotlit figures in a shadowy space and the intense exchange of gazes between the two younger people recall the works of Caravaggio.

This painting is one of the artist’s largest compositions of this subject. It was commissioned by Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the effective ruler of France during the last years of Louis XIII and the infancy of Louis XIV.

Simon Vouet was one of a number of French artists to visit Rome, travelling via Venice, where he was profoundly influenced by Titian and Veronese. In Rome he came under the influence of both the classicising strand of the Roman Baroque, as can be seen in his Holy family, and Caravaggio. The treatment of colour and draperies betrays the influence of Venetian art, but the composition is classical.

The theatrical scene is an anticipation of the great compositions of Vouet in Paris.

The two female figures, seated on the ground before a classical podium, are Urania and Calliope, two of the nine muses, goddesses of classical mythology who bestowed creative inspiration on practitioners in the arts and sciences. At the left is Urania, muse of astronomy, identified by her diadem of six stars and a celestial globe. The second figure has a book in her lap inscribed “Odiss,” Homer’s Odyssey, which distinguishes her as Calliope, muse of epic poetry.

This painting was almost certainly part of an ensemble depicting other muses. It is the work of Vouet and his extensive studio.

In this painting Mary Magdalen is shown contemplating the cross with her symbols, the jar of ointment (with which she anointed Christ’s feet) and a skull, close at hand.

Suggested by its subject, style and size, this canvas may have formed part of one of the major iconographical programmes for decorative schemes in palace interiors in which Vouet was extremely successful.

The toilet of Venus is a timeless theme of sensuous seduction. You can view other depictions of Venus at Her Toilet in the Web Gallery of Art.

This painting is derived from Caravaggio’s Lute Player. The figures half-open mouth indicates that a more correct title of Vouet’s painting would be Singer Playing the Guitar. The presence of a guitar rather than a lute indicates the popularity of the guitar in the early 1620s.