PAOLO VERONESE:

THE PETROBELLI ALTARPIECE

xavier f salomon (ed.)

Silvana Editoriale, Milan 2009 d14.95160 pp. 71 col illusisbn 9788836613328

The Dulwich Picture Gallery in southLondon scooped the art world withan ingenious discovery, revealed in

an exhibition that ran from 10 Februaryto 3 May 2009. (Incidentally, this was thefirst exhibition in the UK to be devotedexclusively to Veronese.)

The Petrobelli Altarpiece was painted by PaoloVeronese (1528–88) to go in the Petrobellifamily funerary side chapel at the monasterychurch of San Francesco in Lendinara in thePo Valley in northern Italy.The Petrobelli werewealthy landowners and this huge altarpiecereflected their wealth and (self)importance.Cousins Antonio and Gerolamo Petrobelli areshown dressed in their fur-lined finery andaccompanied by their namesake saints,Anthony Abbot and Jerome, kneeling oneither side of St. Michael, who is tramplingSatan and weighing souls in a set of handscales. Above them in a splendid lunette is thedead Christ with angels and cherubs.

After the monastery was suppressed in1769, the magnificent altarpiece fell into thehands of an art dealer who saw his chance tosell several pictures instead of one andhacked it into several altarpieces. After manyadventures, the semicircular scene in heavenended up in Ottawa at the National Galleryof Canada, Gerolamo and St. Jerome becamepart of the original collection of the DulwichPicture Gallery, and Antonio Petrobelli andhis patron saint eventually went to theNational Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.

So what was the ingenious discovery? AtDulwich these three large sections of Ver-onese’s work were joined by a fourth, smallerpicture from the Blanton Museum of Art at theUniversity of Texas in Austin. The fourth pieceis a head of a man identified simply as ‘anangel’ in books about Veronese. It took a littledetective work to see that this angel was in factthe missing St. Michael who once stoodbetween the pairs of figures in this altarpiece.

The Hercule Poirot of the case was thecurator at Dulwich, Xavier F Salomon, whotold me how he had once noticed this ‘angel’in Austin when he was doing research onanother subject and then forgot about it.Years later,when he was planning the reunionat Dulwich of the three large sections of thisVeronese altarpiece, he suddenly remem-bered the head of an angel he had seen at the

Blanton Museum of Art. He thought that,since all the separate works were known tobe by Veronese, someone else must havealready thought of the possibility that thehead belonged to the fragmented altarpieceand must have dismissed it for some goodreason. There must be a catch somewhere,Salomon thought, but investigations revealedthat the angel was painted on the same kindof twill-weave linen used in the rest of thealtarpiece and the measurements tallied.

Now when you see the restored altarpieceit is possible to imagine the whole scene. Allthat is missing is some scenery in the distantbackground (evidently a view of the Alps), therest of St. Michael, most of Satan, and somemiscellaneous wings and flowing garments.

When the altarpiece was being studied in the1950s, painted-over areas were cleaned andscholars discovered that the figure they hadpreviously thought was a cardinal was St.Jerome, for now he was accompanied by histrademark lion. Other tell-tale signs indicatedthat Michael the Archangel was the focus ofthe lower scene. Although Antonio Petrobelliseems to be looking up at something, no one

PaoloVeronese.Clockwise from top,DeadChristsupportedbyAngels,National Gallery of Canada,Ottawa;Saint JeromeandGirolamoPetrobelli,DulwichPictureGallery,London (By Permission oftheTrustees of DulwichPictureGallery);HeadofSaintMichael,BlantonMuseumof Art,TheUniversity ofTexas at Austin,The Suida-ManningCollection;Saint AnthonyAbbot andAntonioPetrobelli,National Gallery of Scotland,Edinburgh.

r 2009 the authors. journal compilation r 2009 bpl/aah volume 16 issue 3 august 2009 The Art Book 23

Exhibitions,Museums andGalleries

had realised that there was a missing figurein the middle of the scene (scholars in the1930s decided that the background was justmore Alps). Salomon explained that thearchangel would have been dressed in vividcolours and would have been very much thecentre of attention for the viewer.

Until the fragments were broughttogether for this exhibition no one reallyknew exactly how large it was.The Dulwichgallery has worked out the probable width(nearly three metres) and height of thealtarpiece, and now for the first time since1789 it has been as reassembled as it evercan be. I asked Salomon if it was possiblethat still another piece might be discov-ered, but he was afraid that it was unlikely.

The catalogue for the exhibition, PaoloVeronese: The Petrobelli Altarpiece, contains goodarticles by Xavier F Salomon, Jennifer Fletch-er, and Stephen Gritt. Fletcher provides anexcellent overview of Renaissance Venetianaltarpieces in general and how they werecommissioned, displayed, bequeathed, andsometimes dismantled. Salomon describesthe history of this altarpiece and its journeythrough sales catalogues, scholarly surmis-es, and a disastrous transatlantic voyage. Healso describes Veronese’s career and otherworks with their stylistic and compositionalcontrasts to the Petrobelli painting. Finally,Stephen Gritt’s article, ‘Pieces of the bigpicture: The Petrobelli Altarpiece and studio pra-ctice’, allows us to look over Veronese’s sho-ulder to see how he created his masterpiece.

The documentation is excellent, withthree appendices containing the texts ofItalian documents mentioned in the essays.The authors all write with solid scholarshipand engaging, readable styles. Like all goodexhibition catalogues, this is not merely asouvenir of an afternoon at a gallery but afine reference book to keep and consult.

sarah lawson

Writer and translator, London

EDITOR’S NOTE

See a video about this exhibition onhttp://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/the_gallery/videos/veronese_the_petrobelli.aspx

ART AND CHINA’S REVOLUTION

melissa chiu and zheng

shengtian

Asia Society, in association with Yale UniversityPress, 2008 d40.00 $65.00259 pages, 150 col/50 mono illusisbn 978-0-300-14064-4

ART AND CHINA’S REVOLUTION

A GUIDE TO THE EXHIBITION

melissa chiu and zheng sheng-

tian, essay by craig calhoun

Asia Society Museum 2008 d11.95 (P)64 pp. 35 col/5 mono illusisbn 978-0-87848-109-5 (p)

Scholarly ink painting, modernist oilpainting, Russian socialist realism,and wood cut propaganda posters

using big characters – these are some ofthe starkly contrasting practices of art inChina after 1949. But the ways in whichthese cultural expressions intersected,mixed, and collided is a complex storythat has been little examined. The mainoutlines of the Cultural Revolution(quickly explained at the beginning ofthe Asia Society exhibition) are familiar –the challenge of the four ‘olds’ (old ideas,old culture, old customs, old habits) to thefour big ‘rights’ (speak out freely, air one’sviews fully, write big character posters,hold great debates.). We know that thebrutal interventions into the cultural arenacaused the destruction of thousands ofcultural sites, that the branding of untoldthousands of intellectuals as bourgeoisdevastated people’s lives.

Yet the entire period is rich withpossibilities for examining the less fa-mous negotiations that took place be-tween artists and society. The Asia Societyexhibition, its catalogue and accompany-ing book give us a riveting introduction tounknown work by familiar artists andmajor paintings by little-known artists. Itbegins to indicate the Byzantine twists andturns of this era, when culture was aprimary arena for political struggle, when

ChenYanning,Cult ofMao10.01ChairmanMaoInspects theGuangdongCountryside (1972). SiggCollection.Photo: Courtesy of Sigg Collection.FromArt andChina’sRevolutionbyMelissa Chiuand Zheng Shengtian.

24 The Art Book volume 16 issue 3 august 2009 r 2009 the authors. journal compilation r 2009 bpl/aah

Exhibitions,Museums andGalleries