_Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo_ (Florentine: 1494-1557).
Jacopo Carucci, commonly called Pontormo, from his birthplace
of that name (a town on the road from Pisa to Florence), was
a scholar of Andrea del Sarto, and was employed with his
master in decorating the outer court of the SS. Annunziata at
Florence. His fresco there of the "Visitation" is, for the
grandeur of the figures and beauty of the colouring, worthy
of Andrea himself. Pontormo was one of the most original
"characters" among those described by Vasari. His pictures were
much sought after, but "he would never work but at such moments
as he pleased, and for such persons as chanced to be agreeable
to him, insomuch that he was frequently sought by gentlemen
who desired to possess some work from his hand, but for whom
he would do nothing; yet at that very time he would probably
be employing himself zealously for some inferior and plebeian
person. One of the Medici had been greatly pleased with a
picture by Pontormo, and said that in reward for it he might
ask whatever he pleased and should have his wish granted. But
such was, I know not whether to say the timidity, or the too
great respect and modesty of this man, that he asked nothing
better than just so much money as would enable him to redeem
a cloak which he had hastily pledged." Many other interesting
tales of Pontormo will be found in Vasari--of his love of
secrecy, his curious manner of life, and the dead bodies he
kept in troughs of water, so to paint more realistically the
victims of the Deluge. This last tale is characteristic of
Pontormo's place in the history of art, which for the most part
was that of an exaggerated mannerist after Michael Angelo. In
the National Gallery we see him at his best. His portraits are
uniformly excellent, and his "Joseph in Egypt" is mentioned by
Vasari as his most successful work--"whether as regards the
power of invention displayed, the grouping of the figures,
the animation of the heads, or the variety and beauty of the
attitudes."
This crowded and fantastic composition contains a drama in five acts
describing incidents in the life of Joseph in Egypt (see Genesis xlvii.
1-6, 13-26; xlviii. 1-14). (1) On the left Pharaoh, in a white turban,
and surrounded by attendants, is met by Joseph and his brethren, who
stand before him in attitudes of supplication. The youth sitting on
the steps with a basket in his hand is a portrait (Vasari tells us)
of the painter's pupil, Bronzino. (2) On the right of the foreground
Joseph, seated on a triumphal car drawn by naked children, stoops
forward towards a man who kneels and presents a petition. (3) In the
middle distance there is an animated group of men ("Wherefore shall
we die before thine eyes, both we and our land?"). (4) On the steps
leading up to the circular building on the right, Joseph is leading
one of his sons to see the dying Jacob; he is followed by the "steward
of the house," a conspicuous figure in a long crimson robe. The other
boy appears at the top of the steps and is embraced by his mother.
(5) Inside the room Jacob is represented as giving his blessing to
the two boys, Ephraim and Manasseh, who are presented to him by their
father. The antique statues which adorn the building were often given
by mediæval artists as characteristic of Egypt, from which the art of
Greece was believed to have been derived (see Richter's _Italian Art in
the National Gallery_, pp. 36-40).
The removal of this picture has been blasted by a woman's curse. It
was painted for a Florentine noble, named Borgherini; and when he was
exiled, the civic authorities sent to his house to buy up all its works
of art, which were to be sent as a present to the King of France. But
Borgherini's wife received the official with "reproaches of intolerable
bitterness," says Vasari, "such as had never before been hurled at
living man: 'How then! Dost thou, vile broker of frippery, miserable
huckster of twopences, dost thou presume to come hither with intent
to lay thy fingers on the ornaments which belong to the chambers of
gentlemen? despoiling, as thou hast long done, and as thou art for ever
doing, this our city of her fairest ornaments to embellish strange
lands therewith? Depart from this house, thou and thy myrmidons.'" The
lady's anger preserved the picture--only to be afterwards seduced away,
by English gold, into the Duke of Hamilton's Collection, from which it
was bought for the National Gallery in 1882. Borgherini's commission
for the works in question is thus described by Vasari:--
"It chanced that Pier Francesco Borgherini had at that time
caused rich carvings in wood to be executed by Baccio d'
Agnolo for the decoration of coffers, backs of chairs, seats
of different forms, with a bedstead in walnut wood, all of
great beauty, and intended for the furnishing forth of an
apartment. He therefore desired that the paintings thereof
should be equal to the rest of the ornaments. To that end he
commissioned Andrea del Sarto to paint the history of Joseph in
figures of no great size, and these our artist was to execute
in competition with other artists,"--Ubertino and Pontormo
among the number (_Vasari_, iii. 201, iv. 353).
Ubertino's paintings for this sumptuous bedroom as well as that of
Pontormo have now found their way into our Gallery (see 1218, 1219).