Apollo and Marsia (Ribera Napoli)

L’ Apollo and Marsia It is a painting oil on canvas (182 × 232 cm) by Jusepe de Ribera of 1637 preserved in the National Museum of Capodimonte of Naples. ^[first]

Inquired of the ways learned by Caravaggio, the painting represents one of the highest moments achieved by the painter in question and, more generally, of the Neapolitan painting of the seventeenth century.

Also at 1637, another version of the painting, always in Ribera, today at the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels dates back. ^[first]

The first news relating to the canvas of the Ribera is starting from the second half of the seventeenth century, when the same was cataloged in the inventories of the Avalos collection, ^[2] On the occasion of the passage of the collection by Giovanni D’Avalos, probably the client, to his son, Prince Andrea di Montesarchio. ^{[first] [3]}

The theme was particularly in vogue in those years for the Ribera, which in fact cooked several times in representations of this mythological story. Julius Cesare Capaccio already in his The forastiero of 1630, cites a canvas of Apollo and Marsia of Ribera at the private village and art collector Gaspar Roomer, located on the outskirts of Naples, who owned one of the richest art collections of the city and probably a very first version of the work. ^[4]

To date there is no certainty on which painting has been part of the Roomer collection, ^{[5] [6]} As it is that of Capodimonte that a second version of the canvas, performed in the same year (1637) always by Ribera and merged today at the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, report a dating following the text of Capaccio (1630, perhaps also 1634). ^[4] The most likely hypothesis would therefore be to believe that the Flemish patron had another version of the Apollo and Marsia , today dispersed or not yet identified, probably coeval with another ribera canvas present in Roomer’s inventories, the Silenus drunk , ^[6] Also also merged into the collections of Capodimonte. ^[4]

L’ Apollo and Marsia of Ribera remained in the Avalos collection of Naples until 1862, when Alfonso V d’Avalos donated the same to the newborn Italian state. ^[7] The evaluation of the canvas was 800 ducats, the highest figure assigned to a single picture of the collection (in absolute terms the work with the highest value was instead up to the series of Papers of the Battagli di Pavia , estimated for 5,500 ducats for each single cloth). ^[4]

Since 1957 the canvas found stable exposure to the National Museum of San Martino, with the version of the Apollo and Marsia performed by Luca Giordano: both works were then moved in the early 90s to the National Museum of Capodimonte. ^[7]

The subject treated in the painting refers to the epic verses of Ovid in the metamorphosis, immortalizing the moment when Apollo is about to implement the torture (the shaking) against Marsia, the latter lying on the ground with the feet/legs tied to a tree. According to legend, in fact, the goddess Athena, who had invented the flute instrument, while playing the same was derided by Eros because of the funny grimaces (redness in the face and swollen cheeks) that made its face while playing the instrument. So the goddess, annoyed by this, dropped the flute to Earth. Subsequently this was collected by Marsia, a satyr (being half a man and a half goat) who lived to guard a small tributary river of meander, in Anatolia, and began to play the instrument and practice until he became so good to be considered even more capable of Apollo, God of music. Apollo thus challenged Marsia in a music race, where the first would play the lira while the second, precisely, the flute. If initially the challenge was able to consider it in a tie, in the end Apollo still managed to win thanks to his cunning; In fact, he proposed to the satyr to play the instruments on the contrary and, while the lira still emerged harmonious melodies, the flute did not sound. At this point the myth ends with the punishment inflicted in Marsia which, in fact, was linked to a tree and alive alive by Apollo. ^[2]

The painting of Ribera, signed and dated on the large stone in the lower right, ^[2] testifies to the full maturity acquired by the Spanish painter, where, alongside the raw and immediate realism of the scenographic composition, the result of the Caravaggesque ways, it combines the dark style typical of the Neapolitan pictorial period of the seventeenth century, which is characterized by the accentuation of dramatic characteristics and violent characters. Marsia is portrayed with his gaze turned outside towards the viewer, who at this point takes on a guise of “witness” of the torture, while Apollo opens a deep wound on the goat legs of the satyr without leaving any feeling in the face, perhaps just a thin grin. ^[first] Finally, while at the two extremes of the diagonal on which the scene is built we find the two musical instruments that recall the cause of so much violence, the lira from arm and the seven -reed flute, in the right corner of the painting there are three satirians who assist Strased at the death of their partner, from whose tears the river will be born that will take the name of Marsia. ^[first]

Of particular value is the use of colors, which assumes the highest point in Apollo’s cloak, in the sky in the background and in the body of the satyr, from whose face also, torn and screaming, with the corrugated skin, you can also see the Remarkable detail of the foul teeth. ^[first]

Ribera always performed other versions of the Apollo and Marsia , a junta up to the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, another (then attributed to a follower of the painter, identified with Antonio De Bellis) arrived at the Sarasota Museum, while a few years earlier, around 1630, it is recorded at the house by Gaspar Roomer in Naples what most likely is the first version of the subject in question, which will such successful in the Neapolitan artistic environments. ^[4] Also at 1637 then a canvas of the Ribera of the Venus and Adonis Today at the Gallery of Palazzo Corsini in Rome, which refers a lot in the style to the two contemporary versions of the escort of Marsia now known, that of Naples and Brussels, as if to consider that the works made part of the same group of orders in relation between They. ^[4]

It is not known what is the reason why the painter made “simultaneously” more canvases with the same subject, or in any case as bonds of client intercorganize between one and the other work, however it is still possible to assume that when the moment in which Painter he made the work requested by the Flemish merchant and collector Gaspar Roomer (presumably one not yet traced) this has been so successful that he received orders for other similar works both to leave in the city, such as that of Avalos today in Capodimonte, both for Foreign client, who perhaps had been requested directly by a resident friend already abroad and who had been able to admire the canvas in the Roomer house, such as the one today in Brussels. In the latter hypothesis, for example, the request of his compatriot friend Ferdinando Van Den Eynde, another art merchant and collector active in Naples, who commissioned Luca Giordano his version of the ‘ Apollo and Marsia , which in fact appears in the bequest of 1688 between the paintings of the house.

The Brussels painting is in any case very similar to that of Naples, although the Belgian version is slightly larger than the Neapolitan one (202 × 255 cm against 182 × 232 cm); In fact, the only substantial differences are found in the figures of the Apollo: in that of Capodimonte these has taken up the face of a face with a glyce -colored cloak, while in the Belgian version it has taken up in profile with a pink cape.

Jusepe de Ribera’s work also became a model of the Apollo and Marsia (205 × 259 cm) by Luca Giordano from 1659-1660. ^[8] The similarities between the version of Ribera and that of its student appear immediately evident even if, however, Giordano’s canvas is conceived in general on darker shades and faster and faded brush strokes, shaded, ^[8] learned the latter during his Venetian experience. ^[8] Analogies with the version of the Spanish master can be found as well as in the general structure of the composition, built on the diagonal of the tree, albeit mirroring compared to the version of Ribera, even in the smallest details, such as: the torn face of Marsia, the despair of satirians Against the background of the scene, the musical instruments subject to the dispute placed on the top of the diagonal, the choice to represent the torture in its initiatory phase, the glycine color of the cloak of Apollo, the same God who, placed in the foreground, is preparing to slide The satyr starting from his legs related to the tree. ^[8]

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  Apollo and Marsia (1637, Ribera – version of Capodimonte)

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  Apollo and Marsia (1637, Ribera – version of Brussels)

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  Venus and Adonis (1637, Ribera – Museum of Palazzo Corsini, Rome)

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  Apollo and Marsia (1637-40, Antonio de Bellis (attr..) – Museum of Art, Saras)

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  Apollo and Marsia (1659-60, Luca Giordano – Capodimonte Museum, Naples)

• Historical archive for the Neapolitan provinces , Naples, published by the Neapolitan Society of History and Patria, 2015.
• Capodimonte Museum , Milan, Italian Touring Club, 2012, ISBN 978-88-365-2577-5.
• Pierluigi Leone of the camp, The treasures of the Avalos: client and collecting of a large Neapolitan family , Naples, Publishing House Fausto Fiorentino, 1994.
• O. Ferrari and G. Scavias, Luca Giordano. The complete work , Electa, Naples.
• N. Spinosa, Ribera. The Complete Opera , Electa, Naples 2003.