MICROSTORY OF ART ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM Leonardo da Vinci at the Courts

(21.1.2023) Looking back at my 2021 New Salvator Mundi History, which was a project in its own right, my research interest is now developing into two directions: our perspective has a) to be broadened towards a general history of Leonardo attribution (a project that only can embarked on with a good portion of sarcasm and humour, because this story is so full of stuff and nonsense), and b) we have to study the Salvator Mundi iconography now in various epochs and geographical regions, aiming at preparing the overview that is lacking, and starting, perhaps, with Early Netherlandish painting. But below I am showing, with three examples, that at around 1600, there was already confusion as to what Leonardo had painted and as to what the Leonardeschi. Three examples of discernement lost (or never attained), and three examples of Leonardo da Vinci, or better: of what was taken as Leonardo, at/from the Courts of Europe.

One) Melzi at Fontainebleau

(Picture: Kries)

While the example that Vasari had named was actually Salaì (paintings by Salaì that Leonardo had – to whatever degree – reworked, and that were taken as originals by Leonardo, and this in Milan), our first example is Francesco Melzi. And it has to be Melzi, since what we find at Fontainebleau, at the court of French king Henry IV and queen Maria de’ Medici, is, Melzi as well as Leonardo.
If we put aside for a moment that also a Salvator Mundi painting multiplied at Fontainableau, due to the work of Franco-Flemish painters at Fontainebleau – what we know is that the Vertumnus and Pomona (now in Berlin; picture on the left) was at Fontainebleau, and also do we know, this is perhaps a bit less known, that Maria de’ Medici was in possession of a Flora (picture on the right). This Flora painting is the Melzi Flora (now in the Hermitage), and this is a painting that, as it seems (I am not in the position to consult the necessary documents), was taken as a painting by Leonardo then.
As for the Vertumnus and Pomona – this is either a painting that from the beginning was taken as a Leonardo, or it did turn to be one (perhaps due to a Melzi signature scratched off, plus wishful thinking).
And the picture at Fontainebleau completes if we further mention that Fontainebleau painter Ambroise Dubois (the supposed author of the Detroit Salvator), not only was commissioned to copy the Mona Lisa, this we know, but that he might also have been commissioned to copy the Flora, since I am tempted to see the Salvator group which I have named the ›Fontainebleau group‹ in parallel to the various Flora versions of which we know, and of which the version today at Blois strikes me as a possible Dubois (small picture on the right).

Be it as it may, but if it would be indeed true that also the Flora was copied at Fontainebleau, our first insight must be that a Melzi painting (or better: a painting that is, by general consensus, seen as a Melzi today) had been appreciated to the degree that it was copied. And if it was copied as a Leonardo (because people, then, thought it to be a Leonardo) we would have a model, a paradigm, a theory that could also be applied to the Salvator Mundi known as version Cook (the notoriously famous version, which I consider to be a Melzi-plus-Leonardo-hybrid that was possibly finished also by help of Salaì). Brief: it seems that at Fontainebleau, at around 1600, there was hardly made a difference between Melzi as an author and Leonardo as an author. And this insight may never be lost.

Two) Marco at the Papal Court

(Picture: Sailko)

(Picture: Hans Weingartz)

Our second example is the Salvator Mundi by Marco d’Oggiono at the Galleria Borghese, which is a painting that was, as the Galleria Borghese is telling us, given by Pope Paul V (small picture above on the left) to his nephew Scipione Borghese (small picture on the right) as a present in 1611. Thus there is little to argue here: the painting by Marco, by general consensus a rather early one, was seen as a Leonardo in 1611, and this by a pope, who provided his nephew, the founder of the Galleria Borghese, with it, leaving it to further centuries to correct the attribution, which, however, is on record. Thus, also at the papal court: the painting of one of the Leonardeschi, of Marco d’Oggiono, who was, at his day, probably much more popular than he is today, had already turned to be a Leonardo.

Three) Luini at Whitehall

The Luini Flora in the Royal Collection, in Palace of Whitehall then, is our third and last example. Was there a discernement at the court of Charles I and Henrietta Maria as to the difference between a Luini and a Leonardo? It seems that there was none: »recorded in the Little Room between the Breakfast Chamber and the Long Gallery at Whitehall in 1639 (no 21) as Leonardo da Vinci«, the website of the Royal Collection does inform us. And the discernment was brought back only much later.
Thus we would be mistaken to think that the conoscenti at the place where we see also a Salvator Mundi painting, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, did make a difference. As a matter of fact they did not. Luini was Leonardo. And in case there might have been also Melzi or Dubois – on what grounds may we claim that the court of Charles I had the necessary discernment to tell what was what? In other words: is it not more appropriate to think that Leonardo attributions, also at the courts of the Stuarts, and also generally, are not particularly reliable? Due to early confusion and necessary discernement lost very early on?

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