MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

INDEX | PINBOARD | MICROSTORIES | FEATURES | SPECIAL EDITIONS | HISTORY AND THEORY OF ATTRIBUTION | ETHNOGRAPHY OF CONNOISSEURSHIP

M
I
C
R
O
S
T
O
R
Y

O
F

A
R
T

Not only about Leonardo da Vinci in Switzerland. No, no, this is not only about mysterious pictures seized from bank vaults, or about pictures mysteriously switching bank vaults, or about pictures that only can be seen in bank vaults (or freeports, although a freeport seems to be a rather interesting place to look at an old, or at an not so old master).
The following is, as it is always with Leonardo, rather ambiguous: a documentation as to all relations that we can find – between Leonardo da Vinci and Switzerland. And what we have found – over the years, one might add, since this is also a supplement to my investigations on Leonardo da Vinci and the East, on Leonardo da Vinci and the Orient –, a supplement, in sum, this is, or a segment of a future supplement, dedicated to Leonardo and the North. An assortment of transnational myth-productions, but also of transnational research, and, of course, all of this being of transnational interest, and assembled to the benefit of our transnational audience and readership (picture above: Roland Zumbühl: with the Rigi, see also below, in the background).

A quince, but not necessarily from Ticino (picture: Conrad Nutschan)

1511: a fire set on by Swiss troups at Desio on 13 December is, according to modern Leonardo scholarship (trusting the inscriptions on that very sheet), rendered on sheet No. 12416 (Windsor collection; the readable inscription, in right-hand-writing, is, according to Carlo Pedretti, by Francesco Melzi, and a transcription of a faint red chalk note by Leonardo [be prepared to enter the particular geography of Leonardo scholarship; at times it is chaos within a labyrinth…]); the dates given on the sheet are by the way December 10 and 18; the sheet speaks of two fires, of which only the second is attributed to »the Swiss«); the technique is red chalk on red ground; other drawings show, as it is assumed, for example the Finsteraarhorn, as seen from Milan; as to Swiss maps, one ought to consult the European maps as drawn by Leonardo (see: here); and in his geographical notes Leonardo da Vinci does mention for example the rivers Rhine and Rhône, the lakes of Lucerne, Lugano, Geneva, Constance and Chur, but since Leonardo did dispose of an atlas and of maps, these references do not necessarily mean Leonardo da Vinci having been physically there (if we would follow that logic Leonardo would have visited the whole world as known to him, and probably also some stars); more realistic it is to assume that Leonardo, as we will see, did walk the grounds of and close to Milanese territory (he does also mention quinces from Ticino; and last but not least: Swiss guards at Rome).

1513: according to early sources the falling of a mountain did occur near Bellinzona, an event of which Leonardo, being at Milan or at Vaprio, may have heard of (see Pedretti’s commentary to the Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci (as to this edition see below), volume 2, p. 209).

Although, here, we do not want to speak of Leonardo’s pupils, his workshop and of copyists in the first place, we should like to mention a copy or a version of the Madonna of the Rocks, formerly in French collections, but now in a Swiss private collection, a picture that Italian Leonardisti (namely Pietro C. Marani and Carlo Pedretti) discuss as one of three versions (the other ones being of course the Paris and the London version), three versions that seem to find mentioning in the sources (British audiences, though, seem to be rather unaware of this third version that Pedretti, apparently, even tends to regard as the second one; compare in this regard the catalogue to the Zurich exhibition mentioned below; Leonardo scholarship, traditionally, has rather assumed the existence of two versions, but it could be that the extant documents indeed imply or refer to three; this would mean also that history does in some sense repeat itself, since, originally, until one had become aware of the documents in the 1890s, one had discussed mainly the question of ›which one is original?‹, that is ›London or Paris?‹).

Leonardo da Vinci and Switzerland / Leonardo da Vinci und die Schweiz / Leonardo da Vinci e Svizzera / Léonard de Vinci et la Suisse

(Picture: swiss-timber-bridges.ch/W.Minder)

1839: two carrying arches of a wooden bridge at Signau, the so-called Schüpbachbrücke, are, according to Leonardo scholar Ladislao Reti, built according to a method that also Leonardo knew of (or already knew of); no earlier bridges built according to that method, again according to Reti, are known.

1850 (November 27): for 500 francs 32-year-old Jacob Burckhardt buys a Leonardesque picture (»allegedly by Leonardo da Vinci«) of John the Baptist that he offers to the Basel museum and to the Frankfurt Städel (but in vain); the picture, in 1851 and to the same price, is bought by Felix Sarasin, the then-mayor of Basel (see: Emil Möller, Leonardo da Vincis Brustbild eines Engels und seine Kompositionen des S. Johannes-Baptista, in: Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 3 (1911), pp. 529-545; and see also editions of the letters by Jacob Burckhardt; as the latter’s judgment can be quoted that the picture »if not by Lionardo’s hand« was made »in any rate under his eyes«; Möller did favor, with some reservations, the attribution to Giampietrino; the subject is also referred to as an ›angel of the annunciation‹).

1881-1884: Leonardo scholarship, still being in its pioneering stage, discusses briefly a hypothesis suggested by Heinrich von Geymüller, according to which Leonardo da Vinci had visited the Rigi; this hypothesis, built on the assumption that Leonardo had come to know a particular chapel on the Rigi mountain, is being subsequently dismissed (the chapel in question apparently having been built only much later).

(unknown date): a sheet with notes and drawings by Leonardo (the aged Leonardo, living in France) and originally belonging to the Codex Atlanticus collection of sheets, enters a Basel collection of autographs; it is shown, for example, in the 2000/2001 Leonardo exhibition at Zurich.

1929: Swiss citizenship is given to German-born art historian and art connoisseur Jean Paul Richter (1847-1937), resident of Lugano and a pioneer of Leonardo da Vinci scholarship with his two-volume edition The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci of 1883; the second edition of this opus magnum, published in 1939, Richter is going to prepare at Lugano, in collaboration with his daughter Irma A. Richter (see here).

M
I
C
R
O
S
T
O
R
Y

O
F

A
R
T

1958: Swiss art historian Joseph Gantner publishes his monograph Leonardos Visionen von der Sintflut und vom Untergang der Welt. Geschichte einer künstlerischen Idee (Berne 1958).

1984: a Ritratto di fanciulla in a Swiss collection, a picture that Italian art historian Adolfo Venturi had apparently attributed to Leonardo is being discussed, on the basis of a photograph, by Carlo Pedretti.

(Picture: ticino.ch)

2000/2001: Leonardo exhibition at Schweizerisches Landesmuseum (SLM), Zurich; beside the above mentioned Leonardo sheet, a so-called ›phallic head‹ from a Swiss private collection, which a scholar had published in 1991 and attributed to Leonardo, was on show.

2005: the Italian historian Marino Viganò suggests to attribute the Locarno Ravelin (Rivellino) to Leonardo (see now: Marino Viganò, Leonardo a Locarno. Documenti per una attribuzione del ›rivellino‹ del castello 1507, Bellinzona 2009); a ravelin is a triangular fortification; this attribution rests on the combination of indirect clues (and apparently also on the, alas, all-too-familiar rhetorical question, all-too-often heard in Leonardo scholarship, which goes ›who else but Leonardo?‹ (nothing said against that question, nor against Viganò’s, as it appears to me, very solid historical scholarship, but it is not my duty to answer this rhetorical question, nor is it to anyone else to positively ascertain an attribution, but to the person who comes up with; and by the way, we don’t even know all of Leonardo’s pupils by name, what about his one German apprentice, for example? Do we even know what this one apprentice did in his life?).

2012: the so-called ›Isleworth Mona Lisa‹ (picture on left), made known again by the Zurich-based Mona Lisa Foundation that is being endowed by the present owners of the painting, is, at Geneva, being presented to the public as an (or as the) original work by Leonardo (an attribution, presently, not having a great deal of support among Leonardo scholars; they do, by the way, not particularly like that alleged results are being presented as established facts or truths, before the scientific community was even allowed to see the picture ›in the flesh‹ (again), not to mention to think, to conduct research and to discuss, but this is, as it seems, the way how ›connoisseurship‹ is practiced these days – it seems to begin with a bold challenge…).

2013: in a newspaper article the German art historian and Leonardo expert Frank Zöllner, mentioning also that new ›Leonardos‹ are in the habit of appearing almost always in Switzerland, criticizes a minory of experts which, beyond the taking of a fee for giving expertises, seems to benefit directly (with a percentage) from sales of pictures authenticated by them.

2015: inspired by newsreports on a supposed ›Leonardo‹, being seized by the Swiss police in Lugano, a painting of which the world (and also the Italian police, and obviously also the owner, living in Switzerland) does believe that the doyen of Leonardo scholarship and especially Leonardo philology, namely Carlo Pedretti, does believe to see ›the hand of Leonardo‹ in it, this present documentation has actually been put together (Pedretti, as one does hear these days, has in the meantime rowed back), but as a question does remain for example why, according to newsreports, the owner had been inclined to offer the work for, reportedly, 95 millions on the market: on what basis does one make, if it is true, such an offer, if not even the authenticity of those parts of the painting that could be by Leonardo have been ascertained? (And one might ask also: on what market?)

PS: Do read also the illuminating interview with the owner here (according to her own statement Mrs. Emidia »Bibi« Cecchini did spend the impressive sum of about 300’000 Swiss francs on expertises).

The Red Rigi by Turner (picture: tate.org.uk)

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
HOME

Top of the page

Microstory of Art Main Index

Dietrich Seybold Homepage

© DS