Venice
Sep 26
Dear Henry
I followed your directions at Bologna & went about with your letter in my hand. For the number & the merit that certainly must lie among them somewhere I never saw such uninteresting pictures as those of the Scuola Bolognese <1> in general with some splendid exceptions. There is so much confusion in their pictures it makes one doubly value the simplicity & scarcity of the Florentines. I think among the dealers that the Giuseppe del [Soles?] house had nothing in it worth looking at but the ceilings which were not for sale – Rossi had some undoubtedly good but not tempting – The one I liked best was a great Sisyphus I think of L. Caracci <2> & S. Benedetto Guido also some small landscapes of Poussin <3> & Domenichino <4> – whose S. Agnes – if a real one, had lost so much of the brilliancy she must have had when fresh from the master’s hand that I think you need not regret her.
Neris collection is very good for a dealer, I do not think he has one bad thing in it – I wonder how you resisted the Garofalo <5> which I think beautiful for 60 L. an An. Caracci <6> for 70 – a very pretty M. & bam. <7> of Sc. Raffaellesca <8> I think certainly genuine but has been repaired & not well for 12 – two ruddy boys heads soidisant Correggio <9> but not a bit his colouring for 20 – a studio of P. Veronese <10> on Paper I think beautiful for 25 – a fatto storrio [sic] of a miracle by Giorgione <11> 30 – all these 1st – not last prices –
At Ferrara I got the name of a dealer for you Ubaldo Sgherbi – he took me into his shop & shewd me some trash but said he had roba of another sort, e come! in his magasine <12> which I had not time to look at – he shewed me some letters as vetus testimonium <13> by which it seems he has travelled with a Mr Neill Malcolm & Mr & Mrs Stirling in search of pictures.
But if you had any idea of buying pictures why did you not come here. A dealer has one of the finest galleries in Venice – he has the Rezzonico Titian <14> & Sasso Ferrato <15> – the Mocenigo P. Bordone <16> 3 sisters by Giorgione which have quite fixed his reputation with me & I was beginning to wonder how he got it. It must have been this Ld Byron alludes to in Beppo <17> – & a Seb. Piombo <18> equal to any – besides many others, these are all for hundreds those of lower prices are very good the finest Palma Vecchio <19> for 160 – Luino <20> 50 – two beautiful heads S. Ferrato & Domo 36 each – a lovely Pietà Lod. Caracci 60 2 Landsc Agost. Caracci <21> – 2 Padovaninos <22> an author I like – vis. Hercules & Iole beautiful fresh as yesterday – 70 – a Venus not as most a copy from Titian 50 – & a Parca & Juno a very good P. Veronese 40 – Ld Southampton has been buying of him & wd have taken his Palma Vecchio but it was too large.
If this means pictures are retouched which I suppose they are, they are inimitably well done. The Casa Barbarigo disappointed me. I admired the Ercolani <23> very much more than Zambeccari. <24> I remarked the [illegible] S. Peter it is very fine the Padua garden is good I like Bertoloni <25>
Write to me by F. O.<26>
Yr aff
W F S
Henry Talbot Esqre
31 Sackville Street
London
Inghilterra
Notes:
1. Bolognese School.
2. Lodovico Caracci (1555–1619) (and also below, ‘Lod. Caracci’), Bolognese painter.
3. Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), French painter.
4. Zampieri Domenichino (1581–1641) (also below, ‘Domo’), Italian painter, student of Annibale Caracci.
5. Benvenuto Tisio, known as ‘Il Garofalo’ (1481–1559), Italian painter who worked at Ferrara.
6. Annibale Caracci (1560–1609), Italian painter, nephew of Lodovico Caracci.
7. Madonna e bambino (Madonna and Child).
8. School of Raphael.
9. Supposedly Correggio, Antonio Allegri (1484–1534).
10. Paolo Veronese (1528–88), Venetian painter.
11. Giorgione (1477–1510), Italian painter.
12. Stuff of another sort, and what stuff! in his warehouse.
13. Old (established) testimony.
14. Tiziano Vecellio (?1490–1576), Venetian painter. The 18th century Ca’ Rezzonico is now the Venice Museum.
15. Giovan Battista Salvi (Sassoferrato) (1609–1685) (also below, ‘S. Ferrato)’, Italian painter.
16. Paris Bordone (1495–1570), Venetian painter in the style of Titian. Some of his works are in the Palazzo Mocenigo in Venice.
17. George Gordon Byron (1788–1824), poet, Beppo: A Venetian Story (London: John Murray, 1818).
18. Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547), painter of the Venetian school.
19. Jacopo Palma ( ca.1480–1528), known as ‘Palma Vecchio’ (Old Palma), Venetian painter.
20. Probably Bernardino Luini (?1465–?1540), painter of the Lombard school.
21. Agostino Caracci (1557–1602), Italian painter, brother of Annibale and nephew of Lodovico [see above]. ‘2 Landsc’ are two landscapes.
22. Alessandro Varotari (Padovanino) (1588–1648), Venetian painter.
23. The family house of the Ercolani, an Italian family of patrons. Conte Vincenzo Ercolani was patron of Corregio, and according to Vasari perhaps the first owner of Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel (Florence, Pitti), a copy of which WTHFS had recently commissioned.
24. Villa Zambeccari, built in 1785 by Marchese Camillo Zambeccari.
25. Prof Antoine Bertoloni (1793–1868), Italian botanist.
26. The Foreign Office - the letter would then be forwarded through the diplomatic pouch.