Giovanni Mansueti was one of the many gifted artists active in Venice in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century who were overwhelmingly influenced by the art of Giovanni Bellini. At the same time, Mansueti had a highly distinctive and instantly recognizable style of his own, though by the time of his death the rise of such artists as Giorgione and Titian meant it had become almost stubbornly old-fashioned.
The present large panel is one of the finest works he ever executed. It is prominently signed on one piece of paper, and less obviously dated 1499 on another, amidst a list of names of the officers of the commissioning body. In Venetian painting of the period, it belongs to a very particular genre that involved the colourful and exotic presentation of religious subjects in narrative cycles. Such works were commissioned by what were called Scuole (literally ‘schools’, actually trade guilds and religious or national brotherhoods), and most such pictures adorned their meeting rooms and offices, which may explain their secularizing tendencies. As it happens, this depiction of the arrest of St Mark the evangelist and patron saint of Venice is known to have been one of a series of four paintings – two of the three others were by Cima da Conegliano (in Berlin) and Lattanzio da Rimini (lost) – which flanked an Annunciation by Cima da Conegliano (Hermitage, St Petersburg) in the chapel of the Guild of the Silk-Weavers in the Venetian church of the Crociferi (now the Gesuiti, reconstructed by the Jesuits following the suppression of the Crociferi in 1656). The painting’s brilliant and richly hued display of exotic bearded orientals combines with the boldly diagonal architectural depth to make for a delightfully energetic effect. The prominent leopard isolated from the general ‘mêlée’ in the otherwise deliberately empty foreground is a typical Mansueti touch.
- Material/Technik
- Tempera mit Öllasuren auf Holz, parkettiert
- Masse
- 164 × 146 cm, Gewicht: ca. 130,0 kg inkl. Rahmen und Verglasung
- Erwerb
- erworben 1890 durch Fürst Johann II. von Liechtenstein
- Derzeit ausgestellt
- Gartenpalais, Permanente Präsentation
- Künstler/Beteiligte
- Giovanni Mansueti
- Inventarnummer
- GE 857
- Signatur/Bezeichnung
- auf einem Cartellino bez.: IOANES DEMA / N SVETIS / .P.
- Provenienz
- erworben 1890 durch Fürst Johann II. von Liechtenstein
- Ikonografie
- Die Gefangennahme des Markus
Th. von Frimmel, Blätter für Gemäldekunde 6 1910, S. 134f.
A. Venturi, Storia dell'arte italiana, Bd. VII, 4, Bd. Bd. VII, Mailand 1915, S. 560
Adolf Kronfeld, Führer durch die Fürstlich Liechtensteinsche Gemäldegalerie in Wien, 3. Aufl., Wien 1931, S. 169, Kat. 857
B. Berenson, Italian pictures of the Renaissance, Oxford 1932, S. 326
R. van Marle, The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting, Bd. 17, Bd. Bd. 17, Den Haag 1935, S. 189ff., Abb. 108
Erich V. Strohmer, Die Gemäldegalerie des Fürsten Liechtenstein in Wien, Wien–Leipzig 1943, S. 90, Abb. 4
S. Moschini Marconi, Gallerie dell'Accademia di Venezia, Bd. I, Bd. Bd. I., Rom 1955, S. 138
B. Berenson, Italian pictures of the Renaissance, Venetian School, Bd. I, Bd. Bd. I, London 1957, S. 108, Abb. 369
F. Heinemann, Spätwerke des Giovanni Mansueti, in: Arte Veneta XIX 1965, S. 150f.
Reinhold Baumstark, Meisterwerke der Sammlungen des Fürsten von Liechtenstein. Gemälde, Zürich–München 1980, S. 46–47, Kat.-Nr. 3, Tafel 3
Julian Raby, Venice, Dürer and the Oriental Mode, in: The Hans Huth Memorial Studies, 1, Totowa, New Yersey 1982, S. 35-41 u. 62
Patricia Fortini Brown, Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of Carpaccio, New Haven-London 1988, S. 200
Ausst.-Kat. Venice et l'Orient. 828-1797, Stefano Carboni (Hg.), erschienen Paris 2006, S. 126 u. 304-305, Abb. S. 127, Kat. 27
Trinita Kennedy, Ausst.-Kat. Venice and the Islamic World 828-1797, New York 2007, S. 304-305, Abb. S. 127, Kat. 27
Catharina Schmidt Arcangeli, Ausst.-Kat. Venice and the Islamic World 828-1797, New York 2007, S. 126, Abb. S. 127, Kat. 27
Johann Kräftner, Das Badminton Cabinet, Wien 2007, S. 11, Abb. 11
Johann Kräftner, Die Schätze der Liechtenstein. Paläste, Gemälde, Skulpturen, Wien 2013, Abb. S. 203
Johann Kräftner, The Treasures of the Liechtensteins. Palaces, Paintings, Sculptures, Vienna 2013