MASP

Jacopo da Ponte Bassano

Adoration of the Shepherds, 1580-90

  • Author:
    Jacopo da Ponte Bassano
  • Bio:
    Bassano del Grappa, Itália, 1510-1592
  • Title:
    Adoration of the Shepherds
  • Date:
    1580-90
  • Medium:
    Óleo sobre tela
  • Dimensions:
    140,5 x 190,5 x 4 cm
  • Credit line:
    Doação Rosalina Coelho Lisboa de Larragoiti, Samuel Ribeiro, Silvio Alvares Penteado, Gladston Jafet, "Brazilian Traction", Major Kenneth Mc Crimmon, Louis La Saigne, Ernesto Larragoiti, Joaquim Magalhães, José Gonçalves de Sá, Indústrias Químicas e Farmacêuticas Schering, Antenor Rezende, Henry Borden, Evaristo Fernandes, Família Álvares Penteado, 1950
  • Object type:
    Pintura
  • Inventory number:
    MASP.00026
  • Photography credits:
    João Musa

TEXTS



Donated by Viscount Allendale to a charity auction at Christie’s in London for the British YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association), the Adoration of Shepherds was sold to the Studio d’Arte Palma on June 24, 1949 (n. 63), as a Leandro Bassano. In a letter to P. M. Bardi, undated but written immediately after the sale, Roberto Longhi suggested that compared to the most well-known variants in Rome’s Galleria Borghese and in Padua cathedral, this work most closely resembled the original by Jacopo Bassano, which was unknown to him: “As has been observed, it is highly probable that such variants go back to a lost original done by Jacopo Bassano himself. Now, it so happens that in this painting the first masses of sketches, for example, the trees at the left and the peasant with the red hat [sic] on the same side, have a much more ‘Jacopesque’ character than the Rome and Padua variants. In addition, the picture is unfinished (for example, the masses of the hut at the right are only outlined); this also may lead us to believe that we have here a canvas with the first foundations sketched in by the father [Jacopo Bassano] and later developed by his sons Francesco and Gerolamo, but left unfinished”. Although, the work’s state of conservation is not bad, a cleaning would improve its visibility and make it possible to judge its Jacopo studio authorship – often an arduous task even with conserved paintings. Of course, an exclusive Jacopo autograph should be ruled out from the start, due mostly to the heavier stroke and material of our work, which could not render the vibrant spiritual approach of the artist’s last phase. Nonetheless, the quality of the work is, in general, quite good, which rules out the possibility of it having been executed by Gerolamo, the youngest son and the most mechanical imitator of Jacopo, who was rarely capable of understanding the poetics of his father except in the most parodic and prosaic way. After cleaning, it may be possible to confirm an attribution to Francesco (rather than Leandro) working on a model of his father’s, who may have intervened personally in the spectacular figures of the boy squatting at the right, the kneeling peasant and even Saint Joseph. Nonetheless, Jacopo Bassano’s original, supposedly lost according to Longhi, is the work in the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute in Utica, New York, displayed in the 1958 Christmas Exhibition of the Art Museum School of Art and published in its December 1958 bulletin. From the point of view of composition, the Masp work does not differ from the Utica version except in background details such as a hut at the right instead of the left, the motif of the boy at the column, a Raphaelesque reminiscence not included in the American work, and other minor details. The Utica work, in addition to being slightly lighter – which might perhaps be imputed to its better state of cleanliness and conser- vation – has a firmer design and less dramatic luminance. The Masp work obviously belongs to a period of the Jacopo studio when the luminance acquired nocturnal phosphorescent qualities, such as in the Nîmes Museum Suzana, dated 1585. It is no less evident that, from the point of view of its execution, the work closely resembles the inverted version of Francesco’s Adoration of the Magi, conserved at the Dresden Pinakothek (Venturi 1929, fig. 882) which although less dramatic in its light, seems to be of an even earlier date. Comparison with the nocturnals of the seventies and eighties is inevitable, and it is indeed highly possible that the work dates from the eighties. This was the last decade that Jacopo worked alongside Francesco, his eldest son (1549-1592) and natural successor who set up his own studio in Venice in 1579 but did not totally abandon his work at the Bassano studio. Among other versions of the composition worth highlighting is the inverted version at the National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, attributed to Jacopo Bassano and studio.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

Source: Luiz Marques (org.), Catalogue of the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo: MASP, 1998. (new edition, 2008).



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