Guido Reni'Painting of the Immaculate Conception

8/10/2019 Guido Reni'Painting of the Immaculate Conception

1/15

G u i d o R e n i s ainting

o t h

Immaculate onception

H 0 W A R D H I B B A R D Professor f Art Hzstory, Columbia University

G U I DO R E NI is hardly among the Italian painters most popular with today's artlovers. Yet Reni was once so esteemed that a sensitive contemporary biographer,

G. B. Passeri, could write that he was the noblest, most majestic painter who everlived- not only in my own opinion, but by common consent. Reni's name was longa household word - even the author of Fanny Hill invoked Guido as a synonym forextreme delicacy and refinement of color, and Stendhal found a painting by Reni tohave absolument a sensibilite a la Mozart. But times were changing and Reni fared

poorly with writers whose judgment was charged with Protestant morality. For Ruskinhe was prominent in the School of Errors and Vices, and not long ago Bernard

Berenson wrote, Our grandfathers were thrilled by Guido Reni's ecstatic visages,whose silly emptiness now rouses our laughter. A painter who can earn such praise-and such opprobrium deserves attention. The Metropolitan Museum's painting pressesthe issue to the utmost: Reni's large Immaculate Conception (Figure i) is preciselythe kind of image that his admirers oved and his detractors loathed. It is also a docu-mented work of historical importance and high quality.

Guido Reni, who was born in Bologna in i575 and died there in i642, was first

apprenticedto Denis

Calvaert,an excellent Flemish mannerist who had settled in

Bologna. By the time he was twenty, Reni had moved to the more modern studio ofthe Carracci, and he was doubtless the most gifted of their pupils. About I599, shortlyafter leaving the Carracci studio, he painted his first Assumption of the Virgin (Fig-ure 2), which has all the qualities of the Carracci grand manner. Its power of designmakes it clear that in his early twenties Reni already rivaled his teachers. Soon after

painting this picture he went to Rome, where he changed his style rapidly, influenced

by Caravaggio but also attracted by antique works and their High Renaissance coun-

terparts. Reni prospered; from i6o8 until 1614 he was the leading painter in Rome,executing a brilliant series of fresco decorations in the Vatican, the Quirinal, and Sta.Maria Maggiore. His Roman career was crowned by the linear poetry of his famous

1. The Immaculate Conception, y

Guido Reni (1575-1642),Italian. z627. Oil on canvas,

105 x 7212 inches. Victor

Wilbour Memorial Fund, 59.32

I9


2/15

*' , -

'r

. ,,, 4

, :

.,s , 1

1

.

Rs I.

r t''tS^''1I iS '


3/15

2. The Assumption of the Virgin, byGuido Reni. About I599. Oil on canvas.Pieve di Cento, Sta. Maria Maggiore,Bologna. Photograph: A. Villani,Bologna

Aurora ainted on the vault of a dining oggiain Cardinal Borghese's arden on the Quirinalhill (Figure 3),

which aloneIs worth a tour to

Rome, althoughno more aRemnant were there of the old world's

sole throne.Byron, Don Juan, xiv:40

And yet, although Reni was widely acclaimedthe best painter n Italy, he was not content.Rome had strengthened, eepened, nd variedhis style, but he seems not to have relished hechallenges nd competition of life in the artcapital of the world. He hated rescopainting,the medium of his great Roman decorations.Other, psychologically omplex reasons mayalso have influenced his retreat rom Rome:his neurotic nd even psychotic endencies rewell documented y his biographer, arlo Ce-sare Malvasia. Reni left late in I614 to return

home and, quite literally, o mother; and Bo-logna remained is home until his death.

A large Assumption n Genoa (Figure 4),painted n I616-I617, shows how thoroughlyBolognese Reni again became once he wasback. It is a mature and powerful variant ofhis early, pre-Roman Assumption n Pieve diCento (Figure 2). The ample figures are less

mannered nd the composition s if anythingspatially simpler han the earlier picture. Inboth pictures the clouds recede as they risearound he Virgin and change olor rom grayto gold, a symbol of her transition rom earthto heaven.

In the decade between 1617 and i627-the years between he Genoa Assumption ndthe Museum's mmaculate Conception Renistopped painting in fresco and increasinglyavoided the demands of complex, arge-scalecomposition. In the years around 1620 hepainted a number of canvases rich in emo-tional variety: The Rape of Dejanira (Fig-ure 5) for the Duke of Mantua, and religiouspictures or several patrons. These works howa virile style influenced y the great Venetians

that may owe something o his competitionwith the vigorous young Guercino. (In theend, however, t was Guercino who succumbedto Reni, as the visitor to the Museum an see

20


4/15


5/15

the Cathedral f Seville, but old guidebooksdo not list it. Early n the nineteenth enturythe picture s reported o have made its wayfrom Spain to France and thence to an Eng-lish private collection. Lord Francis Egerton,later Earl of Ellesmere, cquired he Immac-ulate Conception n the I83os, and t adornedBridgewater House or over one hundred earsuntil the Ellesmere ale n 1946. Contrary opersistent umor, he picture s in decent con-dition. Its somewhat wrinkled surface wascaused by the high heat of a fire set by bombsthat hit Bridgewater House during the last

war. This unfortunate but relatively minordefect is not noticeable when the picture isviewed from an appropriate istance.

It would be hard to decide which aspect ofReni's Immaculate Conception- style or con-tent - is more remote rom the modern view-er. In any successfulwork of art the two are,of course, united. Since modern writers endto discuss Reni's paintings almost exclusivelyfrom a stylistic point of view, however, shallbegin with a note about the subject and mean-ing of the Museum's ainting.

4. The Assumption f the Virgin, yGuido Reni. Finished 6I7. Oil oncanvas. S. Ambrogio, Genoa.Photograph: . Villani, Bologna

5. The Rape of Dejanira, y GuidoReni. Finished 62i. Oil on canvas.Louvre, Paris. Photograph: .Villani, Bologna

22


6/15

6. The Immaculate onception, yGuido Reni. About 1623. Oil oncanvas. . Biagio, Forli. Photograph:Anderson Art Reference ureau

7. The Assumption f the Virgin, yDenis Calvaert (about I540o-I6I),Flemish. Possibly about I57I. Oil

on canvas. Pinacoteca, ologna.Photograph: linari- Art ReferenceBureau

Whatever else Reni may have been tryingto do, he was certainly attempting to painta picture of the Virgin that would satisfy hisown vision of heaven. Reni was devout, andhis faith centered on the Virgin. We hear of

a miraculous ure performed on Reni by apainting of the Madonna; nd Reni's Assump-tion in Castelfranco Figure i) was the agentof a miracle on the day of its unveiling. All ofthis is very far from most of our experiencestoday. To get an idea of the man and theframe of mind in which he painted we cannotdo better than to quote Malvasia, who knewand admired im for qualities hat would nowcall for psychiatric reatment:

When he was a little boy, for seven yearsstraight he heard knocking t his door everynight of the Christmas eason, and . . . forseveral years he awoke each night to seeabove his bed a kind of light the size of anegg.... He was most devoted to Our Ladythe Virgin Mary and in his youth went

every Saturday to worship her image onthe Monte della Guardia and every even-ing infallibly, as ong as he lived, worshipedin Santa Maria della Vita. For this reason

23


7/15

many believed - I don't know if with over-zealous thought-that since he too was avirgin that she had deigned to appear tohim. Certainly no painter of any century

knew how to show her so utterly beautifuland modest; and it is unbelievable that any-one ever will again.

Mary's Immaculate Conception becamechurch dogma only in 1854, but the idea goesback to the Middle Ages. Its popularity de-rives from Mary's traditional role as mediatorbetween God and man. Mirella Levi D'An-

cona wrote in her pioneering book on theiconography of the Immaculate Conceptionthat Mary

embodied the idea of feminine beauty, pu-rity and love and was considered as a com-plement to the work of the Lord in thesalvation of mankind. The first sin had beencommitted with the help of a woman, and

only another woman who had known nosin could be chosen by the Lord to becomeHis Mother and give birth to the instru-ment of salvation, Christ. The devotion tothe Virgin Immaculate is a sublimation offemininity in its two aspects of maidenlypurity and motherly love. Every womanmay have either of these qualities, but Maryalone of all women embodied both together.

It took centuries-as may perhaps be imag-ined - for theologians to settle the controversyover how, and in what sense, Mary was Im-maculate, that is, free from original sin at herconception, as opposed to her sinless concep-tion of Christ. Abelard had identified Marywith the loved one in the Song of Songs: Thouart all beautiful, my love, and there is no spotin thee, but belief in Mary's ImmaculateConception, with its delicate combination ofpopular credulity and theological nicety, wasnot favored by the learned doctors of Rome.Although popular demand had finally forcedgrudging papal acknowledgment of the exist-ence of a philosophical problem late in thefifteenth century, the subject might never

have had much vogue in art had not the Prot-estant Reformation made Mariolatry an issueand the Immacolata a point of pride. Theidea of the Immaculate Conception was par-

ticularly popular in Spain, where it had beenthe subject of an enormous controversy in thesecond decade of the seventeenth century.Various Spanish factions pressured the popeto rule on the status of the concept, but nodefinitive judgment was laid down, despite anoticeable preference for the wording The

Conception of the Immaculate Virgin overThe Immaculate Conception of the Virgin.

Nevertheless, under Urban VIII Barberini(I623-1644) there was some evidence of papalindulgence for the view that Mary had been

immaculately conceived: the Barberini sub-sidized the new Capuchin church dedicatedto Santa Maria della Concezione and UrbanVIII even laid the cornerstone late in I626.After this date Roman artists increasinglypainted the subject: Lanfranco, Poussin, andothers produced versions late in the i62os.

Back in the mid-sixteenth century, earlyin the Counter Reformation, artists were stillnot sure how to depict the Immaculate Con-ception. Giorgio Vasari gives us an explicitaccount of his own troubles in 1540, when hefirst painted the subject (Figure 8). It was noeasy matter, he wrote, and, after seeking theadvice of learned men he finally painted it inthis way:

In the middle of the picture Iput

thetree of original sin and at its roots, as thefirst sinners against God's commandments,I showed Adam and Eve, nude and bound.Then I showed Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, and succeed-ing kings -all tied by both hands with theexception of Samuel and St. John the Bap-tist, who are tied by only one hand sincethey were sanctified in the womb. Woundaround the trunk I showed the old serpent,and since he is half human, his hands aretied behind his back. Above, the gloriousVirgin rests one foot on his head, the otheron a moon; she is clothed with the sun andcrowned with twelve stars. The Virgin isheld in air by a glory of nude angels, illu-minated by the rays coming from her. Therays pass through the leaves of the tree and

give light to the captives, seeming to loosetheir bonds by their virtue and grace. Inthe sky at the top of the picture are twoputti holding banners on which is written:

24


8/15

Quos Evae culpa damnavit, Mariae gratiasolvit Those whom the sin of Eve damned,Mary's Grace saved]. .. It did not sat-isfy me.

Such a picture, so explicit in its theologicalcomplexity but so confusing s an image, wasnot apt to attract the faithful. During thenext half century painters implified and re-fined the iconography, nd the subject beganto take on an important role in Counter-Reformation rt (see Figure io). Mary's rep-resentation as the Immacolata became sta-bilized as the great wonder n heaven revealed

to St. John on Patmos: Awoman obed withthe sun, beneath her feet the moon, and onher head a crown of twelve stars. The iden-tification with Mary was nevitable ince Johngoes on to say that She gave birth to a malechild, who is destined to rule all nations.These attributes became tandard or the Im-maculate Virgin, and the Madonna was often

shown mmaculate ven when seen n a visionof a different ort (Figure 9).In its formal representation he Immacu-

late Conception became the counterpart ofthe Assumption: ne shows Mary before herlife on earth, the other after t. This accountsfor the similarity in iconography betweenReni's Assuntas and his Immacolatas. Eventhe same criptural llusions erved or both -on the frame below Reni's Assunta n Castel-franco Emilia s inscribed passage rom Ju-dith: Tu honorificentia opuli nostri; thesewords are repeated during the mass for De-cember 8, the feast of the Immaculate Con-ception: Thou art the glory of Jerusalem,thou art the joy of Israel, hou art the honorof our people. . . Thou art all fair, Mary,and there is in thee no stain. Reni's iconicsolution became a standard or later artists ofollow. He reduced both the Assumption ndthe Immaculate Conception o a minimum ofexternal references nd symbols, refining heworship of Mary to its essentials.

In the Museum's painting Mary stands onthe crescent moon, hands pressed ogether nd

eyes raised n adoration. The upward gaze,a constant n Reni's religious works, derivesfrom Raphael's t. Cecilia, a picture Reni hadcopied as a young man and which was then,

8. The Immaculate Conception, by Giorgio Vasari(5151/-574), Italian. 1540. Oil on panel. SS.

Apostoli, Florence. Photograph: Alinari - Art

Reference Bureau

25


9/15

9. Madonna Appearing o Sts.

Jerome and Francis ( Madonnadegli Scalzi ), by LudovicoCarracci (1555-6I 9), Italian.

Oil on canvas. Pinacoteca,Bologna. Photograph: A. Villani,Bologna

as now, in Bologna.) Mary is flanked by twoangels whose bodies orm the sides of a largetriangle extending up to her head. This gen-eral scheme s closer to Calvaert's Figure 7)than s any of Reni's other versions. The Mu-seum's painting also bears a resemblance oother works of the Counter-Reformation e-riod, such as Scipione Pulzone's Immacolata(Figure io). Reni may have known this pie-tistic and hieratic composition, ut his paint-ings of the same subject were animated witha seicento humanity hat cheers ven the Met-ropolitan's elatively chilly picture. In Reni's

work, Mary s crowned by the customary ia-dem of twelve stars; behind her, the brightlight of paradise reates a mandorla aroundwhich angel heads seem to take shape like

cloud pictures again derived from Raphael.In the painting n Forll (Figure 6), Mary isclosely surrounded y the clouds and angels,but in the Castelfranco Assumption Figureii) the space around Mary was widened tomake room for her expansive gesture. Thismore extensive pace s kept in the New Yorkpainting even though the gesture s changed.

The deep golden ight that plays so large arole n all these paintings by Reni seems o bean equivalent o the traditional old groundof medieval eligious anels. t emphasizes heother medievalizing qualities of the Metro-

politan's picture: ts lack of depth, its formal,symbolic composition, ts insistence n threesand twelves.

Like the arias of an opera (an art that wasrapidly developing at just this time), Reni'snew use of color beginning n the mid-I62oswas embroidery the enrichment f a theme.Abandoning he Venetian warmth of his pic-

tures done a few years earlier Figure 5, forexample), he adopted an increasingly londtonality, using colors hat are bright and clearon the larger orms, delicate in subordinateareas, ometimes lusively changing. The Vir-gin traditionally wears ntense blue and red:here her deep blue mantle alls over a pinkish-violet robe. During these years Reni began opush the close harmony nd differentiation frelated hues farther than any contemporarypainter was willing to go, as can be seen n thelight blue of the girdle against the Virgin'srobe and in the pale drapery of the angel atthe left, where shadows become the lightestof violets and the flesh reflects reenish ones.This cool and fragile harmony of blues, yel-lows, and greens s set off violently by the hot

gold of the glowing empyrean behind. Theuniquely ubtle color contrasts n the draperyare accompanied y a treatment of flesh thatbecomes brittle and even porcelaneous n itsdelicately precise finish, without either thehuman warmth and accessibility f Reni's ear-lier figures or the softly transparent, roaderhandling of his latest works. The Museum's

painting s perhaps he apogee of this pecu-liarly remote phase n Reni's quest for vision-ary perfection.

Reni's tendency to stabilize and then elab-

26


10/15

orate conographic hemes s continued n twofinal Assumptions. One of these (Figure 2),sold by Reni in I637, is a free version of theCastelfranco icture. Although painted by anassistant r pupil, t must have been designedby Reni, since the drapery oreshadows isultimate nterpretation, hich s now in Mu-nich (Figure 13). Finished in I642, this pic-ture is apparently he last to have been sentfrom Reni's studio before his death. It closesthe series begun almost orty-five years earlierwith the altar n Pieve di Cento (Figure 2).In the Munich picture Mary emerges ike a

Venus rom her cowrie shell of blue drapery.The gracious, boneless ngels pay homage toReni's master Ludovico Carracci, ut the mel-lifluous all of drapery s his own. Painted onsilk, an innovation that Reni hoped wouldgive his pictures dded permanence, his greatcantilena s shaped by the loosely brushed ut-lines of his late manner. Lacking he exquis-itely diaphanous oloration f the Metropoli-tan's mmacolata, ithout nterest n textures,it combines he blond tonality and the clearimpact of the Metropolitan's ainting witha freedom of movement that was noticeablymissing in the archaizing pictures of I627.

As we look back on Reni's career, he seemsto have been destined to develop a personaland idiosyncratic tyle that could not havebeen pursued n the official environment ofRome. His brief return there in i627, duringwhich he produced our Immacolata, musthave confirmed issenseof estrangement romthe Roman cene. At the very moment of thebirth of Roman baroque painting Reni wasundergoing is most profound tylistic crisis,

which he met by reviving a heraldic nd rela-tively linear style. If we compare his Rape ofDejanira of i62I with the Metropolitan's pic-ture (Figures 5 and i), we see the amazingchange of direction n his art, which took himfrom a commanding osition n the neo-Vene-tian tendency to a style that seems almostits antithesis. The same contrast can also befound between he Immacolata nd the

freelybrushed, omplex, recessional, nd asymmet-rical art of Nicholas Poussin and Andrea Sac-chi (see Figure I4), who were working in

Rome n this very period. While hese youngermen were enlivening painting through theinvigorating tudy of Annibale Carracci, heVenetians, nd antiquity, Reni turned o therigid compositions f Scipione Pulzone andthe feminine grace of Calvaert. Reni's intro-verted attention to the purification f his artproduced he increasingly lond tonality hatmay have exerted an influence n painters fthe i63os in Rome; Reni himself must havebeen out of sympathy with Roman paintingin those years. After painting our Immacu-late Conception he destroyed what little he

had begun of his altarpiece n St. Peter's, re-funded his advance, and went back to Bo-logna apparently or good.

But it would be misleading o leave the

I o. The Immaculate Conceptionwith Saints and Donor, by

Scipione Pulzone (before I550-

1598), Italian. Before 1584.

Oil on canvas. Capuchin hurch,Ronciglione. Photograph:Gabinetto FotograficoNazionale, Rome

27


11/15

matter there and say that Reni left the main-stream and reverted o an earlier tyle. Pic-tures uch as ours are extraordinarily loquentabove an altar, with far greater mmediacyand mesmerizing ower han the machines fReni's previous period. In this Immacolata,Mary's mouth, ike those of the angels, s par-tially open, as if voicing a prayer or supplica-tion. The revelation of human warmth andfrailty the humanization f the divine is acharacteristic f seventeenth-century rt andReni was one of the innovators. Reni's life-size figures tand n a shallow pace hat helpsto induce an empathetic response at oncehuman and religious. Gianlorenzo Bernini,the presiding enius of the Roman baroque,admired Reni's igures nd even appropriated

them or his own use. (There was a lively give-and-take etween painters nd sculptors f theperiod; Bernini's sculpture has always beenconsidered rimarily ictorial, but among he

painters nly Reni regularly roduced iguresthat can be thought of as painted statuary.)The Metropolitan's icture may even showan influence n the other direction: Mary'ssilhouette s more agitated and irregular hanthat of the immediately revious Assumption(compare Figures i and i i). The change mayderive from Bernini's statue of St. Bibiana,which had been set up in the church of thatname during the previous year (Figure I5).Nevertheless, the differences between theirstyles are considerable: eni's ater art s icon-ographically raditional nd even iconic; Ber-nini's became ncreasingly ovel and dynamic.Before Bernini's mature works, he viewer re-sponds with an overwhelming ersonal denti-fication with a religious vent, whereas Reni's

later works evoke no such reaction. Reni'sfigures, never sensual, became increasinglyflaccid, impersonal, nd removed rom real-ity by their grace and unnatural color.

28

i I. The Assumption of the Virgin,by Guido Reni. Finished 1627.Oil on canvas. Parish church,Castelfranco Emilia. Photo-

graph: U. Orlandini, Modena


12/15

OPPOSITE

12. The Assumption f the Virgin, rom GuidoReni's tudio. Finished 637. Oil oncanvas. Musee des Beaux Arts, Lyons.Photograph: . Camponogara, yons

53. The Assumption f the Virgin, y GuidoReni. Finished 642. Oil on silk. AltePinacothek, unich.Photograph: abinettoFotografico azionale, Rome

The historian, noting a surge n the i62ostoward what we now identify as the ba-roque, may be tempted to call any othertendency classical r classicizing, ut thisis not a good label for the later Reni. Eventhe archbaroque ainter Pietro da Cortonawas ar more concerned with archaeology hanReni had ever been. The contrast betweenReni's Immacolata Figure ) and a sculpture

by a vital artist using truly antique inspira-tion (Figure 17) makes the point. An inter-mediate position, parallel with Reni's, wastaken by Reni's younger compatriot, Ales-sandro Algardi. Algardi's irst major work inRome, a Mary Magdalen (Figure I6), showsthe extent of his submission o Bernini at atime when his own ideal was still very close

to that of Reni's mmacolata; he resemblanceof the heads (Figures i6 and i) is particularlyclose.

Looking around the gallery in which the

Museum's mmaculate Conception s hung,we are struck by the relative emptiness ofReni's large picture, which a number of artlovers may tend to equate with vapidity. Evenin the Bolognese galleries his pictures ookdepopulated. Only Reni brought amor vacuito such a pitch, and his paintings are for justthat reason highly potent images with greatcarrying power. The Museum's picture is

painted in what was called by contempo-rary biographers eni's second manner ; l-though individual works in this style werehighly prized it was generally agreed thatReni's earlier tyle was better. The critics pre-ferred paintings hat seemed to develop thestylistic heritage of the Carracci and foundit hard to understand Reni's onely search or

ineffable oveliness. Their opinions have beenechoed ever since-and we may admit thatmost of the blood has been squeezed fromReni's art in this unearthly phase. From the

29


13/15


14/15

15. St. Bibiana, by Gianlorenzo Bernini (i598-1680), Italian. 1624-1626. Marble. Sta.Bibiana, Rome. Photograph: Anderson Art Reference Bureau

I6. St. Mary Magdalen, by Alessandro Algardi (1598-i654), Italian. About I628. Stucco.S. Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome. Photograph: Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, Rome

I7. St. Susanna, by Francesco Duquesnoy (I597-I643), Belgian. I630-I633. Marble.

Madonna di Loreto, Rome. Photograph: Anderson- Art Reference Bureau


15/15

NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The essential ntroduction o the art of this pe-riod is Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture nItaly, I600-I750 (Baltimore, I965). The basicwork on Reni is C. Gnudi and G. C. Cavalli,Guido Reni (Florence, 1955), but it is far fromcomplete. I have taken some literary references

to Reni from 0. Kurz, Bolognese Drawings... atWindsor astle London, 1955). The same author'sarticle, Guido Reni in Jahrbuch der kunsthis-torischen Sammlungen n Wien, i i (I937), pp.I89 ff., opened modern criticism and is still in-dispensable. am also indebted to Denis Mahonfor a number of articles, particularly Poussin aucarrefour des annees trente in Nicolas Poussin(Colloques Internationaux), (Paris, I960), pp.238-263; and Apollo, 82 (I965), pp. 386-390. The

biography of Reni in C. C. Malvasia, Felsina pit-trice . .., II (Bologna, 678), is the great contem-porary source of information. nteresting trans-lations of passages eferring o Reni's peculiaritiesare found in R. and M. Wittkower, Born UnderSaturn London, I963).

I am deeply grateful to Marilyn A. Lavin forinforming me about her discovery of importantdocuments n the Barberini rchive related o theaffairs of Reni. These papers are in the Vatican

Library (Armadio 2, Cardinal Francesco arber-ini, Mastro di Casa Bartolomeo Passerini- 627-1631, fol. 38a, December I627: Alle duifacchiniche han' portato da Bologna a Roma sopra e spalleil Quadro della Concezz[io]ne i Guido Reni comoper suafede v14-m[one]ta ome i vede er ric[evu]ta,e cio di parola del S[igno]r ilomar[in]o. rmadio86, Cardinal rancesco arberini, ibro Mastro A,

1623-1629, fol. CLXXXIX, 31 December 1627:v 14 per portatura d'un quadro di Guido Reni

fatto portare da facchini da Bologna, come per leliste ... ).

W. Buchanan in Memoirs of Painting . . ., I(London, 1824), refers o an Assumption y Renithat is apparently the Metropolitan's mmaco-

lata. The Immacolata was published by G. Fioccoin Arte antica e moderna, I (1958), pp. 388 ff.(with color reproduction), and has been excel-lently catalogued for the Museum by FedericoZeri, whose manuscript was graciously allowedto consult together with reports from the Con-servation Department. The Witt Library, Cour-tauld Institute of Art, London, has a photographof the painting before restoration. am gratefulto Otto Kurz and Denis Mahon for information

about the picture, and I was privileged o examineit and discuss ts condition and authenticity withMr. Mahon n the Metropolitan Museum.

For the subject of the Immaculate Conception,M. Levi D'Ancona, The Iconography f the Im-maculate Conception n the Middle Ages and EarlyRenaissance ([New York], 1957), may be supple-mented by E. Male, L'Art religieux pres e Con-cile de Trente (Paris, 1932). See also A. B. Jameson,Legends of the Madonna (London, 1864), and

Edward D. O'Connor, ed., The Dogma of theImmaculate Conception (Notre Dame, Indiana,I958).

For Pulzone, see F. Zeri, Pittura controriforma(Turin, 1957).

For Calvaert, see S. Bergmans, Denis Calvart(Academie Royale de Belgique. Classe des Beaux-Arts, Memoires, V, 2), (Brussels, I934)

Ju s T A S T H IS I s s U E of the Bulletin was going to press, the Museum's Board ofTrustees and staff received with great sadness the news of the death of Robert Lehman.Mr. Lehman was one of the Museum's most active and interested Trustees. Electedto that post in I94I, he was the Board's Vice-President from I948 to i968 and Chair-man of the Board from i967 until his death. Because of his generous contributions,Mr. Lehman was elected a Benefactor in I949. His many significant gifts include

paintings by Cranach, Tintoretto, and Vuillard. As a member of the Purchasing Com-mittee and as Visiting Trustee to the Department of European Paintings, Mr. Lehmanwas valued as a true connoisseur and advisor. Concerned as well with the administra-tive aspects of the Museum, Mr. Lehman served on the Finance Committee and theExecutive Committee.

In a statement issued at the time of his death, Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., President,and Thomas P. F. Hoving, Director, said that Mr. Lehman was one of the finest

Trustees in the Museum's history, exemplifying enthusiasm and interest in the affairsof this institution and keen sensitivity and zest in what was perhaps his favorite activityin life, the collecting of great works of art.

32

Documents

Guido Reni'Painting of the Immaculate Conception