The Personification of Hope

Copy after: Giovanni dal Ponte (in circa 1475-1500)

Thank you. Your question has been submitted.

Unfortunately something has gone wrong while sending your question. Please try again.

Request high-res image

Specifications

Title	The Personification of Hope
Material and technique	Pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white, on purple prepared paper (prepared orange on verso)
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 188 mm Width 94 mm
Artists	Copy after: Giovanni dal Ponte Previously attributed to: Pesellino (Francesco di Stefano)
Accession number	I 5 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1475-1500
Watermark	none? (not visible due to prepared ground, vH, 3P)
Inscriptions	'19' (verso, top centre, pencil)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Provenance	(?) Eugène Rodrigues (1853-1928, L.897)**, Paris; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1920-1930 (Florentine, c. 1470); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Rotterdam 2018 (Jongerius)
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Degenhart/Schmitt 1968, vol. I-2, no. 546, vol. I-4, pl. 370b (Pesellino follower); Byam Shaw 1983, pp. 4-6 under no. 2 (Giovanni da Ponte, free copy after); Paris 1984, pp. 3-4 under no. 2; Forlani Tempesti 1991, p. 181 no. 5, under no. 64
Material	Brown ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Pen > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Technique	Prepare > Prepared > Shaping techniques > General technique > Technique > Material and technique Prepare > Prepared > Shaping techniques > General technique > Technique > Material and technique Highlight > Painting technique > Technique > Material and technique Brown wash > Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe
Place of manufacture	Florence > Tuscany > Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

Do you have corrections or additional information about this work? Please, send us a message

Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Gert Jan van der Sman

This drawing is one of a series of personifications of the seven virtues that also includes the allegories Justice (I 107) and Fortitude (I 533). It is generally assumed that the three sheets were part of a sketchbook. The artist created variation in the colours of the preparation layers and prepared the versos of the drawings in different shades. This lack of uniformity would suggest that the drawings were primarily designed for use in an artist’s workshop.

Thematically, a drawing of the personification of Charity in Paris complements the three Rotterdam sheets, but it differs from them appreciably in technical terms.^[1] Charity was drawn with a metalpoint and is very finely executed. The three Rotterdam drawings were done in pen and ink, so the outlines are sharper and the hatching is heavier. Byam Shaw (1983) rightly inferred from this that the Rotterdam drawings came later. He believed that they were derived from an early set of the seven virtues and that, as of this moment, only the drawing in Paris is known.

Stylistically, the drawing in Paris can be placed in the circle of Giovanni dal Ponte (c.1385-c.1437), a painter whose elegant style has an affinity with that of Lorenzo Monaco (1370/1371-1423/1424). Giovanni dal Ponte’s oeuvre also has aspects in common in an iconographic sense. The umbrella-shaped aureoles that adorn the heads of Charity, Hope and Fortitude are also found on the panel The Seven Liberal Arts in Madrid and the pendant The Seven Virtues, which was sold at auction in New York in 2016.^[2] Giovanni dal Ponte is also thought to be responsible for the depiction of the three divine virtues on Cardinal Pietro Corsini’s painted tomb in Florence Cathedral of 1422.^[3]As in the drawing discussed here, the personification of Hope there is shown in profile, but in that case facing left.

The three Rotterdam drawings can only be dated approximately. The use of pen and ink on prepared paper was unusual before 1475. Degenhart and Schmitt (1968) were able to emphasize that Florentine artists and their assistants fell back on early fifteenth-century iconographic examples until well into the century.^[4]Supposing that the drawing in Paris was made around 1425, the Rotterdam sheets would be dated more than fifty years later.