Portrait
Painting
Frame
Maker & role
Unknown, Painter
Production date
circa 1855-1860
See full details
Object detail
Title
Portrait of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Production place
Collection
Measurements
1 - painting, H: 220 x W: 175cm (H: 2200 x W: 1750mm); 2 - frame, H: 380 x W: 304 x D: 25cm (H: 3800 x W: 3040 x D: 250mm)
Production notes
Possibly Florence?
Signature & marks
Nil
Credit line
Purchase, 2009
Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Vaucluse House Collection, Museums of History New South Wales
Caption
Portrait of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) in gilt oak wreath frame, 1855-1860
Description
Portrait of Italian proto-renaissance poet Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321) in gilt oak wreath frame. The poet in red and white headwear and red robes is depicted facing left, holding a book of poems and a sprig of vegetation. The portrait painted on an oval panel, surrounded by a ‘Florentine’ carved and pierced gesso and gilt wreath of entwined oak leaves and acorns.
The portrait is loosely based on a work by Giotto (1267 - 1337), a friend of Dante, where the poet appears amidst a crowd in a scene depicting "Paradise" in the Chapel of the Podesta, Palazzo del Bargello, Florence. This 19th century version is a slightly naïve copy: Dante appears youthful, without the characteristic downturned mouth and more akin to later portraits of the school of Raphael - of which the 19thC artist may have been more familiar or experienced. The artist has also slightly misunderstood the original clothing: the white and red head covering that appear in the original are here shown akin to simpler draped fabric, giving the poet a feminine appearance. The angle of the head has been lowered, and the book has also changed from a white covered original to a dark volume.
Dante was foremost of the poets of the early Renaissance, and author of ‘The Divine Comedy’, (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise). Dante was Giotto's guest at Padua in 1306, and praised him in Il Purgatorio, (Purgatory, canto XI, 94–96): "Cimabue believed that he held the field in painting, and now Giotto has the cry, So the fame of the former is obscure." Giotto’s portrait of Dante in the Podesta Chapel is mentioned in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists. (Later depictions of the poet show him wearing the distinctive laurel wreath [corona natalitia] awarded to artists and poets [the laurel being sacred to Apollo, patron god of the arts], hence the title ‘poet laureate’). The frame of this portrait suggests the corona civica, the classical wreath of oak leaves and acorns.
Vaucluse House is furnished to reflect its initial occupancy by W.C. Wentworth, his wife Sarah, and their family 1827- 1900, with an emphasis on the periods 1827-1853 and 1861-62. Items originally obtained by the Wentworth family during their British sojourn (1853-61) and European Grand Tour (1858-9) form a substantial part of the collection.
During their Grand Tour the Wentworth family acquired a number of decorative arts including: scagliola and pietra dure table tops; Venetian glass; French clocks; bronzes; silver, gold and micromosaic jewellery; numerous copies of Italian Renaissance and Mannerist paintings; carved and gilt picture and mirror frames and decorative brackets; and porcelain in emulation of 18th century Meissen and Sèvres. The collection is therefore important in illustrating a significant aspect of decorative arts history to Australian audiences. This portrait, acquired by the vendor’s grandfather at the 1900 auction as one of a pair (the other after a self portrait by Raphael, V2009/8-1:2), was part of a large number of similar paintings listed in the Lawson’s 1900 Catalogue of the furniture & effects and valuable pictures, bronzes &c. removed by order of the administrator in the estate of the late Miss Wentworth from Vaucluse House… where they are included in Lot 235: ‘Twenty-six oil paintings on panels, portraits of poets, the old masters etc etc. Oval gilt frames, to be sold separately or otherwise to suit the wishes of purchasers’.
The portrait is loosely based on a work by Giotto (1267 - 1337), a friend of Dante, where the poet appears amidst a crowd in a scene depicting "Paradise" in the Chapel of the Podesta, Palazzo del Bargello, Florence. This 19th century version is a slightly naïve copy: Dante appears youthful, without the characteristic downturned mouth and more akin to later portraits of the school of Raphael - of which the 19thC artist may have been more familiar or experienced. The artist has also slightly misunderstood the original clothing: the white and red head covering that appear in the original are here shown akin to simpler draped fabric, giving the poet a feminine appearance. The angle of the head has been lowered, and the book has also changed from a white covered original to a dark volume.
Dante was foremost of the poets of the early Renaissance, and author of ‘The Divine Comedy’, (Hell, Purgatory and Paradise). Dante was Giotto's guest at Padua in 1306, and praised him in Il Purgatorio, (Purgatory, canto XI, 94–96): "Cimabue believed that he held the field in painting, and now Giotto has the cry, So the fame of the former is obscure." Giotto’s portrait of Dante in the Podesta Chapel is mentioned in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists. (Later depictions of the poet show him wearing the distinctive laurel wreath [corona natalitia] awarded to artists and poets [the laurel being sacred to Apollo, patron god of the arts], hence the title ‘poet laureate’). The frame of this portrait suggests the corona civica, the classical wreath of oak leaves and acorns.
Vaucluse House is furnished to reflect its initial occupancy by W.C. Wentworth, his wife Sarah, and their family 1827- 1900, with an emphasis on the periods 1827-1853 and 1861-62. Items originally obtained by the Wentworth family during their British sojourn (1853-61) and European Grand Tour (1858-9) form a substantial part of the collection.
During their Grand Tour the Wentworth family acquired a number of decorative arts including: scagliola and pietra dure table tops; Venetian glass; French clocks; bronzes; silver, gold and micromosaic jewellery; numerous copies of Italian Renaissance and Mannerist paintings; carved and gilt picture and mirror frames and decorative brackets; and porcelain in emulation of 18th century Meissen and Sèvres. The collection is therefore important in illustrating a significant aspect of decorative arts history to Australian audiences. This portrait, acquired by the vendor’s grandfather at the 1900 auction as one of a pair (the other after a self portrait by Raphael, V2009/8-1:2), was part of a large number of similar paintings listed in the Lawson’s 1900 Catalogue of the furniture & effects and valuable pictures, bronzes &c. removed by order of the administrator in the estate of the late Miss Wentworth from Vaucluse House… where they are included in Lot 235: ‘Twenty-six oil paintings on panels, portraits of poets, the old masters etc etc. Oval gilt frames, to be sold separately or otherwise to suit the wishes of purchasers’.
Accession number
V2009/7-1:2
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