Maratti’s Birth of the Virgin Arrives at Notre Dame
From the press release (via Art Daily) . . .
Carlo Maratti, The Birth of the Virgin, ca. 1684, oil on canvas, 254 × 159 cm (South Bend: Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, Notre Dame: On loan from the Cummins Collection L2024.001).
The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art announced the arrival and installation of a major altarpiece, The Birth of the Virgin, by the Italian Baroque painter Carlo Maratti. The painting is a long-term loan from the Cummins family.
Originally commissioned in 1681 or 1682 by the canons of the Church of Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome, the painting shows attendants caring for the newborn Mary, who turns to look at us. In the background, Anne rests in bed, her husband Joachim at her side, his hands clasped in prayer. The church for which it was commissioned is and remains the German parish in Rome.
“Impressive for both its masterful execution and grand scale, Carlo Maratti’s Birth of the Virgin adds significantly to the collection of sacred art featured at the Raclin Murphy Museum,” said Cheryl Snay, curator of European and American Art before 1900. “Seventeenth-century patrons admired the baroque artist’s sensitive handling of this favorite subject matter, making him one of the leading painters in Rome. We are fortunate to be able to present such a coveted example to our community.”
Maratti is often seen as the last major artist of the classical tradition in Rome, which originated with Raphael and Michelangelo. From his studio in Rome, he executed numerous international commissions. In 1664, he became the director of the Accademia di San Luca, Rome.
The altarpiece hung in the church until 1685, when the canons decided to decline the commission as too costly. Maratti then sold the painting to Count Friedrich Christian von Schaumburg-Lippe, who moved it to his home in Germany. Numerous preparatory sketches for the altarpiece survive in Madrid, Windsor, and Düsseldorf.
“This extraordinary work of art by one of the great masters of the late Roman Baroque is an exquisite opportunity for all visiting the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art,” shares Museum Director Joseph Antenucci Becherer. “The generosity of the Cummins family celebrates the newly opened Museum and the ever-increasing role of the life of the arts at the University of Notre Dame and the entire region.”
The monumental altarpiece is installed on the balcony flanked by the entrances to the Gallery of European Art before 1700 and the Mary, Queen of Families Chapel. Although the origins of a museum collection at the University date to 1875 and include many liturgical images, the scale and grandeur of this altarpiece is an exceptional addition.
Call for Papers | Beauty and Aesthetic Canons within Hispanic Painting
From Le Blog de l’ApAhAu:
A Beautiful Painting? Aesthetic Canons and Pictorial Production within Spanish Crown Territories, 16th–19th Centuries
Lo bello en la pintura? Cánones estéticos y producción pictórica en los territorios de la Corona española, siglos XVI–XIX
Une belle peinture? Canon(s) esthétique(s) et production picturale dans les territoires de la Couronne d’Espagne, XVIe–XIXe siècle
Paris, 9–11 December 2024
Proposals due by 30 April 2024
The beautiful in the field of Hispanic painting (in the sense of painting produced in the territories of the Spanish Crown) is a notion that is not precisely defined and debated regarding its fundamental character in art history in general, and this in favor of an approach that focuses mainly on the realistic canon of this painting. The Spanish Golden Age, religious painting, still life and its great names (Velázquez, Zurbarán, Ribera, etc.) are all linked to a form of realism or naturalism presented as the most characteristic feature of Spanish painting.
However, some recent publications on the Golden Age itself show a renewed interest and a new approach to the subject, which are also evidenced by the new directions of young researchers in the field of Hispanic painting of the 15th–19th centuries. Moreover, exciting works have already been devoted to the painting produced within colonial America, which highlight the importance of adopting a periodization in which 1700 is not a breaking point for American territories, research on painting in the colonial Philippines is hardly sketched out, and for the other territories of the Crown also it seems obvious that periodization cannot be a fixed given. Finally, a renewed interest in a historiographical approach to Spanish art history has emerged in the last decade. The history of Hispanic art is therefore undergoing a period of change.
This symposium is devoted to the question of the beautiful in painting produced within the territories of the Spanish Crown (Spain, but also Sicily, Naples, Milan, South Netherlands, Artois, Franche-Comté, as well as the American and Filipino territories) from the 16th century to the early 19th century. It aims to question both the way in which an ideal has been forged in the painting produced in these territories, often associated in historiography with a «realistic» or «naturalist» canon, with all the problems that these terms imply, and the way in which this canon was perceived and received, or even adapted, transformed to the different periods. What was considered beautiful in the paintings produced in the territories under Spanish rule during modern times? What was the aesthetic ideal of the painter and the viewer? Was beauty really the painters’ first objective? What about the 18th century, particularly after the dynastic change, and the arrival at the Court of artists from France and Italy? What about the 16th century?
From the historiographic point of view, have the paradigms of Beauty been so modified that they have made Spanish painting lose its signs of recognition (realism, predominance of the religious), and have made it forget? What place should be given in this context to the greatest names in painting (Morales, Ribera, Zurbarán, Velázquez, Goya, etc.)? Can we think of the history of Spanish art by giving them less space in the aesthetic canons associated with it?
This event is dedicated to young researchers, and more specifically to doctoral and postdoctoral students working on one of the aspects described above. These French researchers will be able to enter into dialogue with foreign doctoral students, in particular Spanish ones, who are of course also expected: their presence will make it possible to assess whether there are gaps in their approaches, particularly because of the historiographic traditions on which they are based.
Contribution proposals in the form of an abstract of a maximum of 200 words and a brief biographical profile must be sent before the 30th April 2024 to clemence.raccah@inha.fr, iris.romagne@louvre.fr, and cecile.vincent-cassy@cyu.fr. Travel and living expenses (3 nights) will be covered by the organization of the meeting.
Places
Maison du Patrimoine et de la Photographie, Charenton (9th December), Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, Vasari room (10th December), Centre Dominique-Vivant Denon, Paris (11th December)
Organization Committee
• Clémence Raccah (INHA)
• Iris Romagné (CY Université and Musée du Louvre)
• Cécile Vincent-Cassy (CY Cergy Paris Université)
Scientific Committee
• Luisa Elena Alcalá (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)
• Charlotte Chastel-Rousseau (Musée du Louvre)
• Elsa Espin (CY Cergy Paris Université)
• Pablo González Tornel (Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia)
• Álvaro Molina Martín (UNED)
• Felipe Pereda (Harvard University)
• Cécile Vincent-Cassy (CY Cergy Paris Université)
Enfilade 
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