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Entrance Gallery
BackNicolas Régnier, French, 1591 – 1667
Self-Portrait with a Portrait on an Easel (probably of his patron, Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani), c. 1620-25
Oil on canvas
Framed: 136 x 162.4 cm (53 9/16 x 63 15/16 inches)
Harvard Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Eric Schroeder
1982.116
On Régnier and His Patron
That famous lover of virtue . . . Vincenzo Giustiniani hired [Régnier] to work in his home, where he painted images, with various groups of figures from sacred and profane history, together with live models.
Joachim von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675 [Nuremberg, 1675–79], ed. A. R. Peltzer (Munich: G. Hirth, 1925), 368. Trans. by Michael Sherberg (2008).
Nicolas Régnier, French, 1591 – 1667
[Régnier] went to Italy to study the basics where at first he was a follower of the method of Bartolomeo Manfredi, and thence in Rome he acquired no small praise for himself. . . . He was a man of great courtesy and soundness of life.
Joachim von Sandrart, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675 [Nuremberg, 1675–79], ed. A. R. Peltzer (Munich: G. Hirth, 1925), 368. Trans. by Michael Sherberg (2008).
Paolo Domenico Finoglia, Italian, 1590 – 1645
Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, c. 1640
Oil on canvas
Framed: 243.7 x 206.2 cm (95 15/16 x 81 3/16 inches)
Harvard Art Museum, Gift of Samuel H. Kress Foundation
1962.163
On Joseph and Potiphar's Wife - Genesis 39:1-21 (NRSV)*
Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; he was in the house of his Egyptian master. . . . [H]e made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. . . .
And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, "Lie with me." But he refused. . . . One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house, she caught hold of his garment, saying, "Lie with me!" But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside.
When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called out to the members of her household and said to them, "See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside." Then she kept his garment by her until his master came home, and she told him the same story, saying, "The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to insult me; but as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside."
When his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him . . . he became enraged. And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison.
*All biblical quotes in this publication are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Paolo Domenico Finoglia, Italian, 1590 – 1645
But however you look at it, Finoglia's paintings are of such goodness and intelligence in their design, taken altogether, and in the beauty of the lovely colors, in the vigor of the chiaroscuro, that there is no praise that does not apply to him.
Bernardo de' Dominici, Vite dei pittori, scultori, ed architetti napoletani, rev. ed. (Naples, 1742-43; repr., Bologna: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 1971), 116. Trans. by Michael Sherberg (2008).
Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Italian, 1578 – 1635
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, c. 1625
Oil on canvas
Framed: 221.3 x 133 cm (87 1/8 x 52 3/8 inches)
Harvard Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Pope, Arthur Pope, Edward W. Forbes and Paul J. Sachs
1924.31
On Saint Sebastian
[The] prefect denounced Sebastian to the Emperor Diocletian . . . [who] ordered him to be tied to a stake . . . and commanded his soldiers to transfix him with arrows. And the soldiers shot so many arrows at him that he was covered with barbs like a hedgehog. . . . But not many days after, Saint Sebastian stood on the steps of the palace, and accosted the two emperors, berating them severely for their injustice to the Christians. And the emperors said: "Is this not Sebastian, whom we put to death with arrows?" And Sebastian retorted: "The Lord has recalled me to life, so that once more I might come to you, and reproach you for the ill you do to the servants of Christ!"
The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine [c. 1260], ed. and trans. Ryan Granger and Helmut Ripperger (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 107-09.
Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Italian, 1578 – 1635
Whence was seen the greatest of all of Caravaggio's works, the Denial of St. Peter, which hung in the sacristy of St. Martin's [in Naples]. This truly can be called a wonder of art, painted with such power of truth that it defeats any other work that stands near it. Now among those who, tempted by it, followed such a new style, one was our Caracciolo, and he took such pleasure in it that he abandoned all those styles that he had followed up until then, and he directed himself completely at this, and he absolutely resolved to follow it. Thus, it is said, he copied many works by Caravaggio . . .
Meanwhile Gio. Battista [Caracciolo] paid no less attention to the study of painting than to that of books, to which a natural inclination drew him. . . . More than all the other sciences, poetics was his principal study, whence he composed various things in poetry with a very good style, excellent ideas, and seriousness of expression. In the course of that study Gio. Battista had made friends with many learned men.
Bernardo de' Dominici, Vite dei pittori, scultori, ed architetti napoletani, rev. ed. (Naples, 1742-43; repr., Bologna: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 1971), 276, 278. Trans. by Michael Sherberg (2008).
Andrea Vaccaro, Italian, 1604 – 1670
Saint Mary Magdalen, c. 1650-60
Oil on canvas
Framed: 121.92 x 96.2 cm (48 x 37 7/8 inches)
Harvard Art Museum, Gift of Yves Henry Buhler
1945.30
On Saint Mary Magdalen
Saint Mary Magdalen, moved by her wish to live in contemplation of the things of God, retired to a mountain cave . . . Now a certain priest who wished to live in solitude had built a cell at a distance of twelve stadia from Magdalen's grotto. And one day Our Lord opened [the priest's] eyes and made him to see the angels entering the grotto, lifting the saint into the air, and bearing her back after the space of an hour. . . . Calling upon Christ, he cried out: ". . . if thou who dwellest in this grotto art a human being, answer me and tell me the truth!" . . . Saint Mary Magdalen responded: . . . "Dost thou recall having read in the Gospel the story of Mary, the notorious sinner who washed the Savior's feet, wiped them with the hairs of her head, and obtained pardon for all her sins?" . . . "I am that sinner. . . . And every day the angels bear me up to Heaven seven times, where for my joy I hear the songs of the heavenly company with my own ears."
The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine [c. 1260], ed. and trans. Ryan Granger and Helmut Ripperger (New York: Arno Press, 1969), 360-61.
Andrea Vaccaro, Italian, 1604 – 1670
[Andrea] clarified his thinking and stopped following Caravaggio's horrendous style, and turned to following Reni's noble and elegant [style]. . . . Very quickly he detached himself from that style that was so dark and lost among the shadows, and he moved forward in the exquisite aesthetic sense of the other [style of Reni] which stood out in lightness, and was detailed with the light of beauty, with perfection of the parts, and with overall intelligence.
In Gabriello Boraggine's house two half-figures, painted in the style of Guido, the one representing the Magdalene and the other St. Agatha, and they are so nobly composed with colors, with a beautiful turning of the eyes toward the sky, that one cannot want them to be more beautiful.
Bernardo de' Dominici, Vite dei pittori, scultori, ed architetti napoletani, rev. ed. (Naples, 1742-43; repr., Bologna: Arnoldo Forni Editore, 1971), 137, 149. Trans. by Michael Sherberg (2008).