The recent meltdown of Salander O’Reilly Galleries in New York provided many lessons for the audience in the art world and beyond. Some of the lessons were moral, others financial. Even psychiatry played a part. James Panero detailed most of them in his excellent article on the subject that appeared in New York magazine on March 24. What emerged was a sobering parable on the folly of trying to impose one’s will on a segment of the art market. What we learned is that no amount of talent, money, or sheer hubris—and Larry Salander had a surfeit of all three—was able to translate his efforts into a viable business. Throw in a bit of questionable bookkeeping, plus copious professional insouciance, and the result was inevitable: utter failure, to be topped, perhaps, by an eventual criminal indictment.

There is, however, a further consideration that comes to mind on re-reading some of the statements made by Salander himself in the New York article. It’s all too clear from these that the doomed gallery’s strategy was based on a straightforward, seemingly reasonable expectation: if a Donatello, a Caravaggio, a Parmigianino were offered for a fraction of the price of a Warhol, a Jeff Koons, a Damien Hirst, buyers would take notice and their choice would be obvious. As it turned out, this was a fundamentally flawed premise. It depended on a contemporary notion, nay certainty, that name recognition invariably conditions value. This, of course, is true; and the history of modern marketing has shown it to be so. It is a bankable truth as much in fashion as it is in wines and whatever else can be branded—even art. But the art has to be contemporary, or, at the earliest, late nineteenth century, for this to work. The axiom goes something like this: the whole world knows what a Warhol (Renoir, Picasso, et al.) painting looks like—it is instantly recognizable. This fact alone contributes significantly to its value. Conversely, because the value of a Warhol (Renoir, Picasso, et al.) is so conspicuously knowable, its ease of recognition is thereby greatly enhanced. In this respect, Warhol functions as a brand no less effectively than Louis Vuitton. As an extra dividend, these brands are seen as being more desirable because they denote wealth and confer status.

The problem is that the axiom is progressively less true as the origin and cultural context of the commodity, in this case art, recedes further and further into the past. This inconvenient reality complicates matters considerably. For example, with an eighteenth-century painting—not to mention one of an even earlier date—we must contend with a devilish combination of variables such as attribution, condition, rarity, and provenance: factors that, generally, have very little bearing in nineteenth century and later art. Moreover, all too often in older works of art we miss that crucial element so essential for successful marketing—the name! And even if a name can be cited, it may well enjoy no wider recognition than the current readership of Burlington Magazine. Was “Duccio” considered a brand name the way Warhol has always been before the Metropolitan Museum purchased its precious little panel for tens of millions? Clearly not. Did it, because of that felicitous event, finally assume brand status? Perhaps, but only until the publicity subsided—a matter of weeks. The dynamic of value, as it applies in the field of older art, particularly European painting, is, therefore, totally different from what Larry Salander imagined it to be; this, at least in part, was the cause of his undoing. What escaped him, and is still so difficult for many to grasp in our contemporary world obsessed with brand names, is the astonishing diversity and depth of the European artistic tradition. Exploring that tradition in all of its multifaceted manifestations is patient, and sometimes even tedious, work. It means repeated consultation of the specialized literature, continuous exposure to the art itself in museums, galleries, and exhibitions, and always straining to see rather than look—in other words, serious attention, frequent travel, and lots of time.

The arduous task is better understood when one considers that painting in Europe traces its origins to the mid-thirteenth century, at first, in Central Italy. Barely a century later, now fully free of far more ancient Byzantine iconography, the painterly arts were flourishing throughout the continent in at least a dozen local cultures. By 1450, further multiplication had occurred, thus engendering a multitude of well-defined and established “national” schools of painting. These continued to develop and diversify for another five hundred years! It is positively staggering to consider the variety, complexity, and richness that, together, comprise what we call, simply, “European old master painting,” by far the vast majority of which owes its creation to obscure and, often, unknown artists.

The intellectual reward, aesthetic gratification, and sheer delight that an encounter with one of these artists can provide was nowhere more evident than in a small exhibition recently on view in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.¹ Displayed in the splendid Sala Bianca were thirty or so paintings by the virtually unknown Filippo di Liagno, more commonly called Filippo Napoletano (1589–1629). These were works produced during a brief period of four years (1617–21) during which the artist was in residence in Florence at the court of Cosimo II de’ Medici. They have remained in Florentine public collections ever since. It was a small show, by a “small” artist, and yet it provided a fascinating glimpse not only of early Baroque secular culture but also of the birth of Italian landscape painting.

Despite the name by which he is commonly known, Filippo was born in Rome.

Despite the name by which he is commonly known, Filippo was born in Rome. Naples, however, was the city where he received his early artistic training, a city that, at that moment, was experiencing remarkable artistic ferment, what with the visits of Caravaggio and a number of other influential artists from the North. Even in his earliest works one detects in Filippo a desire to arrange small, exotically dressed figures in lush, idealized landscapes. This was in singular contrast to prevailing Counter-Reformation themes stressing mythical struggles of monumental, gesticulating, and heroic figures. Even Filippo’s rare religious depictions are cast in a serene, almost fairy-tale idiom and executed in crisply delicate detail full of bright, primary colors. Returning to his native Rome in 1614, the artist’s evident inclinations received further stimulus by exposure to the works of two gifted northern artists present in the Eternal City: Paul Brill and Adam Elsheimer. They, too, specialized in carefully crafted landscape visions, crystalline in their clarity and palette, spiritually close to Filippo’s intimate, exotic sensibility.

“Exotic” is an adjective which fits appropriately with the tastes of a number of prominent Roman patrons of the time. One might call this privileged coterie the “secret” Rome, comprising aristocrats, clerics, and academics who dabbled in the natural as well as the occult sciences, all the while keeping perfectly well abreast of the philosophical currents prevalent in Protestant Europe. Prominent among them were the cultivated young naturalist Federico Cesi (1585–1630) and the collector and, one might say, proto-encyclopedist Cassiano del Pozzo (1588–1657). Together, they gathered around them a group of brilliant and inquiring minds—among them Galileo Galilei and Johannes Faber—and constituted the first learned society in Europe, the Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of the Lynxes). A kindred spirit in the realm of the arts was the wealthy Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, under whose protection the young Caravaggio had created a number of his more “ambiguous” profane compositions such as the Lute Player (St. Petersburg), The Young Bacchus (Florence), and Amor Vincit Omnia (Berlin). This was not art meant for appreciation by a wide public and most assuredly not in a religious context; it was, instead, to be enjoyed in the intimacy of private “cabinets” by a sophisticated, highly cultivated elite. The paintings were generally of modest size and of a very high level of finish. Filippo’s work, already inclined toward the precious and surreal, was eagerly sought by this influential clientele.

“Official” Rome, however, wore a far different and more ominous mask. Public piety and dogmatic orthodoxy were carefully guarded by the Inquisition and by the relentless Jesuit cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (1542–1621). In 1600 the unrepentant philosopher Giordano Bruno ran afoul of the tribunal and was burned at the stake in the (now) lovely Campo dei Fiori. Galileo himself famously avoided the same fate thirty-three years later by ideologically taking a step back from the brink. It’s always interesting to contemplate how great art and brutal repression co-existed in pre-modern Europe.

While secular, intellectual life flourished behind closed doors in Rome, it experienced a very public re-awakening in Florence with the accession to the Grand Ducal throne of the young Cosimo II de’ Medici (1590–1620) in 1609. As one of his first official acts, he recalled Galileo to Tuscany from a long exile in Padua, granting him a lavish pension and the use of the villa-observatory of Arcetri. Cosimo, his vivacious Austrian wife, Maria Maddalena, and a band of fun-loving siblings transformed the court, initiating numerous ambitious construction and urban-renewal projects such as the expansion of Palazzo Pitti and the building of the villa at Poggio Imperiale. The myriad commissions resulting from these and other undertakings, among them the staging of endless festive jousts, theatrical performances, and masques, attracted scores of artists to the city. Meanwhile, Cosimo’s younger brother, Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici, with all the energy of youth, depth of purse, and acuity of perception at his command, devoted himself to collecting. It was surely at his suggestion that Filippo Napoletano was invited to Florence to serve as court painter. Arriving there in 1617, Filippo found a most enthusiastic patronage for the kind of profane, cultivated Feinmalerei for which he was, by then, well known.

In Florence, Filippo also came in contact with the brilliant French draftsman Jacques Callot (1592–1635), who was busily producing, among other things, the designs for sets and costumes for the court’s pageants. The two artists became friends and, although Callot rarely took brush in hand, there is ample evidence, in Filippo’s work, of the Frenchman’s fanciful, often bizarre, imagery. And so it was in Florence, with its discriminating and receptive patronage, where Filippo Napoletano matured fully, and where he produced several memorable masterpieces. These and other works on exhibit in the Sala Bianca are not normally on view, making this significant show a delightful and particularly rare treat.

Arranged rhythmically around the room were paintings of a subject and size most typically associated with the artist: intimate, small windows opening on enchanted, occasionally brooding landscapes or seascapes. Invariably, these other-worldly spaces are inhabited by spirited figures whose attitudes leave much to our imagination. Indeed, paintings by Filippo Napoletano often suggest a sense of mystery even when a subject may be perfectly discernible, such as in The Conversion of Saint Paul (Florence, Palazzo Pitti).

These other-worldly spaces are inhabited by spirited figures whose attitudes leave much to our imagination.

Anchoring the exhibit along prominent axes were two large and magnificent inventions that should rank among the great achievements of early seventeenth-century art. The first and most astonishing of these—actually a pair of paintings, together measuring over eighteen feet—is simply titled Persian Hunters (Florence, Uffizi). Set against a clear sky and low horizon, a long procession is moving from left to right. It comprises one of the most flamboyant and exotic collections of humans and animals ever assembled: brightly robed soldiers, slaves, musicians, blackamoors, and the occasional potentate with falcon—all with feathered turbans—some riding elephants, others perched on handsome steeds or luxuriously caparisoned camels. Inscriptions in make-believe Arabic abound on the textile hangings. Accompanying the animals and their riders are a pack of ferocious hounds, numerous armed lancers on foot, and, bringing up the rear, three prancing ostriches! It may be the first large-scale Orientalist painting in Western art and, having hung in the Grand Ducal bedchamber, must have been a particular favorite of Cosimo.

The other unusually large work exhibited was the Triumph of Neptune and Amphitrite (Florence, Palazzo Pitti). Here again, but with a more specific mythological subject, Filippo flaunts his remarkable imagination. The scene unfolds in a dark, turbulent marine setting crowded with galloping sea-creatures, monsters, and lithe nude figures charged with erotic energy. Could this be a depiction of one of the celebrated naumachie staged in the courtyard of Palazzo Pitti as a courtly entertainment?

At the other end, as it were, of Filippo’s pictorial spectrum were two small but unforgettable still lifes: one depicting a pair of conch shells (Florence, Palazzo Pitti), the other, two lemons (Florence, University Botanical Museum). In the modesty of their message, these are miracles of acute observation and description. The paintings are dramatic proof of how an artist, so seemingly unconcerned with the real world, could, at the same time, focus with such analytical precision on the visual evidence before him. This seeming paradox can be explained only by the intellectual milieu in which Filippo thrived: the circle of Del Monte in Rome and the court of Cosimo II in Florence. In these rarified environments, interest in the natural sciences—what could be observed with the recently invented telescope and microscope—co-existed, perhaps even enhanced, those unseen, fantasy worlds, beyond the realm of reason where imagination rules.

Far from being the blockbuster so prevalent today, the exhibition at Palazzo Pitti no doubt was missed even by many Florentines. To alleviate their, and our, regret, a superb scholarly study was published to coincide with the show.² Filippo Napoletano’s stature as an artist is, happily, if belatedly, confirmed by this lavishly illustrated book. It is the product of decades of research by Marco Chiarini, the retired former director of the Palatine Gallery of the Palazzo Pitti, and is sure to become a precious reference for the specialist and a joy for any serious enthusiast. Illuminating, as this volume does, a little-known chapter in the development of early Baroque painting, it is added proof that a world of unexpected pleasure still awaits the curious, intelligent, and patient wanderer in the realm of older European art.

Notes
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