REVIEWS 1065

egg, for example), and figurines and cups worked in precious metals. Thornton has a
gift for detailed, vivid descriptions that could almost substitute for the glorious illus-
trations of the Waddesdon objects, even though the illustrations are essential to the
success of the publication. Enhancing her descriptions are exacting comparisons with
analogous objects in other collections. The notes to the introduction and catalogue en-
tries offer essential primary and secondary documentation and, although the prove-
nance information is supplied in the narrative, rather than telegraphically as in most
catalogues, it is certainly adequately presented. Unarguably, this book makes a signif-
icant contribution to the study of the history of collecting and of oft-neglected catego-
ries of art, and will be of value to scholars and connoisseurs for years to come.

Inge Reist, Center for the History of Collecting, Frick Art Reference Library

Davanti al naturale: Contributi sul movimento caravaggesco a Napoli.

Francesca de Luca and Gianni Papi, eds.
Milan: Officina Libraria, 2017. 144 pp. !19.90.

Growing out of a conference held in December of 2015, Davanti al naturale presents

recent research on the Neapolitan Caravaggesque movement. Several leitmotifs reap-
pear throughout its essays: the connections linking Neapolitan artists with Flanders,
Rome, and Seville; the impact of economic conditions on artists’ migrations; the role
of kinship in facilitating the diffusion of style and compositional ideas; and the impor-
tance of circumstantial contact with the works of influential masters in the evolution
of a painter’s technique, style, and subject matter.
Many of the book’s essays describe a single Caravaggesque painter. Gianni Papi’s
essay clarifies the seminal contribution Carlo Sellitto made to early Caravaggism before
his death in 1614. He was trained by the late mannerist Flemish artist Louis Croys, as
was Filippo Vitale, whose son Sellitto carried to the baptismal fountain. Papi notes that
Vitale first experimented with naturalism because of Sellitto, not because of any direct
knowledge of Caravaggio. Sellitto’s influence may have reached as far as Seville, for there
are striking resemblances in the later works of Zurbarán. Papi’s attribution of a Salome
and Herodias Present the Head of John the Baptist to Herod in a private collection greatly
facilitates further identifications. On its basis, I suggest historians can also securely at-
tribute to Sellitto a nearly identical painting of the same subject in the York Art Gallery
( YORAG 1127).
Another early Caravaggesque artist who found popularity in Spain is Giovanni Bag-
lione, the subject of Michele Nicolaci’s essay. Both Palomino and Pacheco agreed that
the young Velázquez took particular note of Baglione’s art. This influence traveled in
both directions, for Baglione adopted some distinctly Spanish iconographies. Marija
Osnabrugge wrote on Matthias Stom, whose documentary trail only covers his Italian

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1066 RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY VOLUME LXXI, NO. 3

wanderings. Osnabrugge suggests that Stom saw Honthorst’s candlelight scenes in

Rome, and then introduced the candlelight subgenre to Naples. We learn that Stom also
introduced to Naples the subject of Christ and the Adultress. Viviana Farina proposes
attributions to Giuseppe di Guido, born in Naples in 1590. Acknowledging that his style
sometimes resembles that of Andrea Vaccaro, Farina notes that Guido was the godfather
of Vaccaro’s daughter.
The remaining essays extend the discussion. Gianluca Forgione discusses his archi-
val discovery of a tailor’s donation of fifty-four paintings to the Quadreria dei Giro-
lamini in 1623, including five works by Ribera. Works by an older painter, Giovanni
Bernardino Azzolino, were also in this donation, and Forgione connects this with the
fact that Azzolino was Ribera’s father-in-law. In other words, Ribera probably obtained
this and other early Neapolitan commissions through his affine, Azzolino. Christopher
Marshall’s contribution in English investigates how much naturalist painters in Naples
earned and how prices were calculated. Marshall’s task is daunting since prices were
determined by myriad and often unrepeatable constellations of circumstances. The num-
ber of figures in a painting was never more than a rough index, Marshall concludes. He
also confirms that in the 1620s and 1630s the Neapolitan market was favorable to
painters.
Maria Beatrice De Ruggieri’s essay asks what it means, in a practical sense, to paint
from nature. Signs of Caravaggio’s technique in Ribera’s works include multiple pen-
timenti (indicating the free manipulation of the composition during the painting pro-
cess) and the use of the ground as a middle tone. Declaring that the painters who
knew Caravaggio and who began their careers under his influence were the most likely
to imitate his technique, De Ruggieri points to the value of technical analysis in cor-
roborating attributions. Whereas De Ruggieri excavates below the surface, Francesco
Saracino hovers above it with his anagogical readings of the play of light and dark in
Caravaggesque works.
In recent years, a few scholars have questioned the utility of artistic influence for
the discipline of art history, portraying the concept as limiting and outmoded. This
book issues a piercing rejoinder, demonstrating influence to be an indispensable tool
for reconstructing the trajectory of an artist or an artistic style. Influence can be seen by
the connoisseur’s eye, it can be deduced from archival information, and it leaves its
physical traces in the material composition. Essential reading for Seicento scholars, Da-
vanti al naturale demonstrates that influence remains vital to the study of the Cara-
vaggesque movement and the fascinating circumstances under which it was propagated.

Sheila Carol Barker, Medici Archive Project

Renaissance Quarterly 2018.71:1065-1066.

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