Danita Fleck ARTH 272, Spring 2003 Catalog Entry
Veronese
(Paolo Spezapreda Caliari) Italian, 1528-1588
Presentation of the Cuccina Family to the Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Jerome by Faith, Hope and Charity
c. 1570-1572 Oil on Canvas 167 x 416 centimeters Staatliche Gemaldegalerie Dresden
This extraordinarily large votive portrait, Presentation of the Cuccina Family to the Madonna and Child with Saints John the Baptist and Jerome by Faith, Hope and Charity is an excellent example of the skillful and sensitive group portraits Veronese incorporated into his devotional paintings. Veronese excelled at paintings of religious pageantry and demonstrated a rare ability to capture whimsical narrative details in huge and complex compositions, integrating individualized figures in suberb half-tone color with majestic classical architecture. Born Paolo Spezapreda into a stonecutter's family in Verona, he became apprenticed to painter Antonio Badile, whose daughter Elena he later married. After 1543 he opened his own workshop and took the name Caliari, perhaps after a noble patron, perhaps to assert independence from his father. Giorgio Vasari named Giovanni Caroto as one of Veronese's teachers. By 1553, Veronese and his brother opened a studio in Venice, and began working on the interior designs for the Ducal Palace. He adopted elements of the Classical and Mannerist styles after moving to Rome in 1560. Upon his return to Venice and marriage in 1565, he developed an integrated style characterized by balanced compositions, witty narrative details, and fluid brushwork. Veronese was one of the most popular and prolific Venetian Renaissance painters: over 150 drawings and 300 paintings attributed to him survive and his workshop completed at least 5 commissions each year. Following the tradition of sumptuous Renaissance Venetian votive portraits led by Titian and Tintoretto, Veronese executed many commissions with similar arrangements of figures. He is known to have painted the Madonna and Child in Glory with Saints John the Baptist and Jerome for the Cuccina family in 1561-1562, now lost.1 Veronese completed many other paintings for the Cuccina family including portraits of Zuana and Marietta. 2 The Presentation is one of a series of four religious-themed canvases including The Adoration of the Magi, Christ Carrying the Cross, and The Marriage Feast of Cana intended for the sala grande of the Cuccina family's newly-built palace 3 on the Grand Canal in Venice; however, the specific installation arrangement is unknown; apparent interactions between the animals in the compositions may be clues. 4 The vibrant, harmonious color and vivid detail monumentalizes the family's piety, fecundity, and prosperity. Alvise Cuccina, a wealthy merchant from Bergamo kneels in the center of the composition on a foreground stage, with the façade of the Palazzo Cuccina in the background, surrounded by his affectionate extended family: bejeweled wife Zanetta, daughter Marietta, seven sons, bachelor brothers Zuanantonio and Antonio (known to have died in 1572), and a nursemaid. Contact among members of
Danita Fleck ARTH 272, Spring 2003 Catalog Entry the family demonstrates their affection for one another. Characteristically Veronese captures the spontaneous behavior of the boys and pet spaniel. The women, their hair fashionably blonde, wear complex garments of extravagant fabrics. The unusual composition with emphasis on the matriarch may indicate the greater importance of women in the family's terra firma backgroun d, feudal traditions, and more liberal inheritance rights as compared with Venetian practices. 5 The presence of the unwed uncles reflects the Venetian custom that conserved the patrimony by permitting only one son in the family to marry. An angel gestures to the Madonna to look past the columns into the earthly domain of the family. Expensively dressed personifications of the three theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity present the deceased brother (in the red doublet) to the infant Christ who extends his arms to the family. The virtues gesture to salvation in the heavenly realm. The Virgin and Child engage in a sacra conversazione encircled by the arms of Saint John the Baptist with his staff and lamb, and Saint Jerome with his Bible. The indirect gazes of the family follow the Venetian custom in not looking directly at holy personages. 6 Prevailing religious attitudes towards salvation and death are in evidence: Faith holds aloft a chalice suggesting redemption through communion; only Antonio looks directly at Christ; and the theological virtues touch only him as they act as intercessors to the holy personages. Though the family was of the cittadini class, the symbols, values, and customs of patricians are depicted, demonstrating aspirations to higher position in Venetian society.
Peter Humphrey, "More on Veronese and his patrons at San Francesco della Vigna," Venezia Cinquecento 1995, v. 5, no. 10, pp. 187-214. 2 "Research to identify a Veronese," Connaisance des arts, 1995, no. 156, pp. 30-35. 3 Attributed to Guglielmo dei Grigi, built c. 1550, now the Palazzo Papadopoli. 4 Richard Cocke, Paolo Veronese: Piety and Display in an Age of Religious Reform, Ashgate: Burlington, Vemont, 2001, p. 152. 5 Patricia Fortini Brown, Art and Life in Renaissance Venice, Harry N. Abrams: New York, 1997, p.165. 6 Cocke, p. 36.
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