The Thanksgiving of Noah
The Thanksgiving of Noah
- Artist
- Giovanni Battista Gaulli
- Artist Dates
- 1639-1709
- Artist Nationality
- Italian
- Title
- The Thanksgiving of Noah
- Date
- c. 1700
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 163.8 x 130.2 cm (64-1/2 x 52-1/4 in)
- K Number
- K1774B
- Repository
- High Museum of Art
- Accession Number
- 58.3
- Notes
Provenance
(Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi [1878-1955] Rome-Florence); sold to Samuel H. Kress [1863-1955] on 17 July 1950; gift to the High Museum in 1961, no.58.30
Catalogue Entry
Giovanni Battista Gaulli
The Thanksgiving of Noah
K1774B
Atlanta, Ga., High Museum of Art (58.31, 58.30), since 1958.(1) Canvas. K1774A, 63 1/2 x 51 5/8 in. (161.3 x 131.2 cm.); K1774B, 64 1/2 x 52 1/4 in. (163.8 x 132.7 cm.). Both in good condition except for few restorations in garment of angel in K1774A and in sky and along bottom edge of KI774B. There is no problem in attributing these two paintings to Gaulli, whose proto-Rococo style of the late 1680s they clearly exemplify:(2) the colors are clearer and blonder than in his earlier work and the gestures are less swift and emphatic; yet the drapery keeps the elaborate arrangement and sculpturesque effect of Bernini's Baroque style. The figure (type and pose) of Noah in K1774B serves for the Zacharias in Gaulli's Birth of John the Baptist in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome; and some of the other figures in K1774B, as well as the whole composition of the picture, are used with little variation in a number of versions of the Noah scene. The first of these is probably one in the Palazzo Bianco, Genoa,(3) which, like a second version, in the Pico Cellini Collection, Rome,(4) is horizontal in format. A third, in the Gasparrini Collection, in Rome,(5) is, like K1774B, vertical in format and its figures correspond very closely to those in K1774B, which is thought to be slightly later than any of the other versions. The Gasparrini version has a pendant, the Worship of the Golden Calf;(6) this, because of the greater number of figures, seems a less suitable pendant to the Thanksgiving of Noah composition than does K1774A.(7) A number of drawings by Gaulli have been cited as studies for K1774A and KI774B.(8) One of these is a study for the Abraham in K1774A, another is for the youth holding an ox in K1774B, and a third is for the Noah in K1774B –all of these drawings now in the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf, where there are also two other drawings for the Thanksgiving of Noah.(9) A drawing at the University of Missouri(10) is for the turbaned figure at the left in K1774B, and one at Windsor Castle is for the Noah scene but very different in composition from K1774B. This painting is much more closely related in single figures as well as in composition to Francesco Castiglione's painting of the subject, K1705, a picture with which Gaulli may have been familiar. Indeed, paintings of the Noah scene attributed to an imitator of Poussin(11) show such close parallels to figures in both Gaulli's and Castiglione's versions as to indicate that the composition of a now lost prototype by Poussin was in some manner made familiar to Italian artists of the period. Because the sacrificial animals correspond to those specified in Genesis 15:9, the subject of K1774B has sometimes been interpreted as Abraham's sacrifice, but the rainbow across the sky and the ark on the hill at the right leave no room to doubt the connection with Noah. Provenance: Contini Bonacossi, Florence. Kress acquisition, 1950 –exhibited: Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pa., 1950-53 (K1774A only), as Abraham's Offering, by Gaulli;(12) after entering the High Museum of Art: 'Genoese Masters,' Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio, Oct. 19-Dec. 2, 1962, Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Fla., Jan. 5-Feb. 17, 1963, and Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., Mar. 19-May 5, 1963 (always K1774A only), no. 34 of catalogue by R. and B. S. Manning, as Gaulli; 'Art in Italy, 1600-1700,' Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Mich., Apr. 6-May 9, 1965 (K1774A only), no. 51 (cat. note by R. Enggass), as Gaulli; 'Masterpieces of the High Museum of Art,' High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 13, 1965-Jan. 9, 1966, pp. 24 f. of catalogue, as Gaulli; 'Paintings, Bozzetti and Drawings by Giovanni Battista Gaulli,' Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, Jan. 16-Feb. 13, 1967, nos. 16 and 17 of catalogue (in Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, vol. XXIV, 1967, pp. 85 f.), as Gaulli.
References
(1) Catalogue by W. E. Suida, 1958, pp. 63 f., as Gaulli. (2) K1774A and B are cited by Longhi (in ms. opinion, 1950) as excellent examples of Gaulli's work toward the last decade of the century; they are dated in the late 1680s by R. Enggass (in Paragone, no. 73, 1956, pp. 31 ff.; The Paintings of Baciccio, 1964, p. 121; and loc. cit. under Provenance); see also Manning (loc. cit. under Provenance) and D. Mahon (in Apollo, vol. LXXXII, 1965, pp. 388 f.). (3) Enggass, The Paintings of Baciccio, 1964, p. 95, fig. 117, and in Burlington Magazine, vol. CIX, 1967, p. 188. See also no. 121 in catalogue of' Mostra dei Pittori Genovesi a Genova nel '600 e nel '700,' Palazzo Bianco, Genoa, 1969. (4) Published by Enggass, in Paragone, no. 73, 1956, p. 30, fig. 28. (5) Published by Enggass, in Burlington Magazine, vol. CVI, 1964, pp. 76 ff., fig. 35. (6) Ibid., fig. 36. (7) Ibid., p. 79. (8) See nos. 35, 36, 37, 38, and 46 of catalogue of the exhibition of Gaulli at Oberlin, 1967 (cited under Provenance). (9) Inventory nos. 11180 and 11232. (10) Reproduced in Muse, University of Missouri, 1967, p. 28. (11) See A. Blunt, in Burlington Magazine, vol. CIV, 1962, pp. 489 f., figs. 14, 15, 17. (12) See Suida, in Philadelphia Museum Bulletin, vol. XLVI, Autumn 1950, p.18.