- Carel van Tuyll did his
graduate work in Art History and Classical Archaeology
at Lydon University. After five years on the academic staff of the Netherlands Art
History Institute in Florence, he joined the curatorial staff of the Teyler Museum in Haarlem, where in 1989, he became
the Chief Curator. His catalog of the Italian drawings of the 15th and 16th Centuries, of the Teylers Museum
was published in 2000. During the Spring semester of 2004, Carel held the Edmund
J. Safra Professorship at CASVA, and later that same year, he was appointed Director of the Département des Arts graphiques at the Musee du Louvre in Paris, where he served until
his retirement in 2013. Carel van Tuyll has published widely on Italian art of the
16th and 17th Centuries, and has co-Curated Monographic exhibitions on the drawings of Guercino, Annibale Carracci, Rembrandt
and Claude Lorrain. This morning he will speak to us about Queen Christina of
Sweden's collection of drawings. Please welcome Carel van Tuyll. (audience applause) - Should be about right here. Can you hear me this way? What needs to be? Good. First of all, let me thank the organizers of this splendid occasion, not only for the hard work they did in bringing this all together, but also for so beautifully compliment, making sure that the one that talks, the succession of talks,
compliments one another in such a nice way. It's a great honor and
pleasure to be here. My subject today, I was supposed to have number one, and I only see number two. Is that... Ahh. Thank you. My subject today is a famous,
almost legendary person. Christina of Sweden, daughter
of Gustav Adolf Vasa, the most successful military commander, on the Protestant side
during the 30 Years' War. His death on the battlefield in 1632 made his daughter Queen
at the tender age of six. She assumed the reigns of
government herself at 18, in 1644. Highly intelligent, unconventional,
and insatiably curious, the young queen soon
established a reputation as the Minerva of the North, corresponding with
princes and philosophers all over Europe, and inviting a stream
of scholars and artists to come to her court in Stockholm. Most famously, of course, Rene Descartes. And then, in 1654, she shocked her country and
the world by abdicating. After 10 years on the
throne, she left Sweden, and converted to Roman Catholicism. Two years later, she arrived in Rome, to make it her home for
the rest of her life. There, she constructed for
herself a new identity, as a Sovereign without dominion, the second most prominent
person in the Papal city, an active and influential participant in political and intellectual debates, a tireless promoter of
musical and theatrical events, and a prominent collector. Contemporary sources speak very
highly of Christina's taste, use superlatives to
describe her collection. From Sweden, she had
brought many paintings, tapestries, bronzes, sculptures
and drawings to Rome. Some of them, the fruit of
the successful siege of Prague by the Swedish troops in 1648. Others, her own acquisitions. The queen rented the
Palace on the Lungara, the Palazzo Riario, which she enlarged and redecorated so that it became a true royal residence. Filled with accumulated treasures, and a renowned library. And part of that library
were the albums of drawings. And it's, of course, these
drawings that concern us today. Their number and quality
were evidently impressive. The young Swedish
architect Nicodemus Tessin, who visited Rome in 1687, '88, wrote home to say that, quote, "The best drawings I have seen here, "were those of her majesty, the Queen." That she took a personal
interest in the drawings, and was considered an
expert in this field, appears from a letter
alluded to by (mumbles), a letter from the
painter Bonaventura Bisi, who wrote in 1655 to his
patron Leopoldo de Narducci. He'd met Christina in
Bologna, and states that "The queen understands drawings
better than her painter," that is, David Beck, author of
this portrait of his patron. In the 18th Century, as you shall see, a provenance from Christina's collection was still considered a
guarantee of quality. And even today, the Queen's drawings are considered somehow special. Witness the fact that I'm standing here. (audience chuckles) Indeed, Christina's larger
than life personality has continued to appeal
to the imagination. (audience laughter) Even if, for much of the 20th Century, her image was, perhaps,
usurped or used by another talented Swedish lady, Greta Garbo, in a wonderful film in 1933. Serious research into
the Queen's collection, and her patronage, didn't start, until 1966, the year the Council of Europe devoted a vast exhibition in Stockholm to Christina's presence
on the European seal. In that year, Johan Quirijn
Van Regteren Altena, a name now familiar to
all drawings collectors, published a short monograph investigating the provenance of the large
group of Italian drawings that the Teyler Museum
in Haarlem had acquired in the late 18th Century, from the Roman Odescalchi family. Did these drawings, indeed form the cabinet of Queen Christina of Sweden, as the bill of sale had claimed in 1790? Altena's research, plus subsequently discovered
archival documents, have confirmed that
claim, for a part of the collection of the Italian
drawings, at least. The current state of research
into Christina's drawings, in fact, allows two seemly
contradictory statements. One, the Queen's collection of
old master drawings, that is, those by many Italian artists
of the 15th and 16th Centuries is remarkably well documented. What is more, an important
segment of it survives to this day in Haarlem. Yet, it appears that she
personally had little to do with constituting this collection. Second, Christina's activity, as a collector of modern drawings, that is, by 17th Century artists, is almost entirely unknown. The size, scope of her
holdings in that area can only be guessed at. And her taste and
preferences are a mystery. It is best, perhaps, to
discuss these two aspects, the old masters and the moderns, separately before considering what the discrepancy between the two might mean, and what it says about the Queen's agency, in constituting her own collection. Christina's old masters
need not detain us long. The story how she came to acquire them, and what became of them afterwards, has often been told. In 1651, that is to say, well before her abdication, the Queen had acquired several albums, we don't know exactly how many, albums full of drawings from (mumbles) in the Hague. The textile merchant Pieter Spiering, himself a (mumbles), a member of the well-known family of tapestry producers from Delft. The items are described
in 1653, as, I quote, "the rarest and most
precious selected objects," including a book of drawings
by Raphael of Urbino, a similar by Titian, another by Michelangelo, one by Polidoro, one by Guilio Romano, as well as more books, with others by the foremost
masters of Italy and Europe. It is likely, though it cannot be proven, that Spiering himself had
bought these books of drawings, or many of them, a few
years earlier, in 1645, from the painter Joachim von Sandrart, when the latter left Amsterdam. In his autobiography,
Sandrart refers to the sale. Sandrart had, of course,
had ample opportunity to acquire Italian drawings
during his years in Rome, before coming North in 1637. But he may also have bought
some in the Netherlands. Michelangelo, Raphael,
Titian, Giulio, Polidoro. These same names keep cropping up, whenever Christina talked
master drawings I mentioned by her contemporaries. With the addition, in one
place, of the names of Parmigianino, for prints,
and Goltzius for drawings. But we don't know how
many albums, exactly, she owned by these artists. In 1687, Tessin, the young architect, says that he was allowed to
see seven books of drawings in the library of the Queen's palace. And he mentions a few individual sheets, by Michelangelo, Raphael and Giulio. The well-known connoisseur and dealer, Padre Sebastiano Resta, evokes the same names in his notes on sheets that he'd seen
in Christina's albums. Interestingly, he says at one point, that the Queen had very
few ancient drawings, meaning quattro (mumbles) sheets, and this is confirmed by
that part of the collection that is now in Haarlem, which is indeed, relatively poor in early Italian drawings. The scope of Italian, excuse me, the range of Christina's
collection (mumbles) drawings, is as fairly well
indicated by the sources, who even possess manuscript inventories of four of her albums, those containing drawings
by Raphael, Goltzius, and two miscellaneous Italian sheets. And there's every reason to believe that these are the same
albums that she'd acquired from Spiering in 1651. Among the works listed in the inventories, which appear to have been drawn up very shortly after the Queen's death, are dozens of sheets that can now be found in Haarlem, in the Teyler Collection. Michelango, Raphael, Giulio Romano, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Titian, although actually,
Domenico Campagnola, but in the 17th Century, this
was pretty much the same. (audience chuckles) And, of course, Goltzius. Well, the rarity of Titian drawings has always been established and any number of drawings by Campagnola went under the name of Titian. With the exception of the Michelango, and the tiny Polidoro, the sheets on the screen now are among the many in Haarlem that can be identified in
Christina's inventories. Some of her albums contain drawings given to a single master, Raphael, Goltzius, et cetera, but without being overly
vigorous or exclusive about it. The first item in the Raphael book, according to the inventory, was a now-lost, "Head of an Old Man," with the inscription "P
Perugino F (mumbles) sheet". The two miscellaneous albums, entitled (speaks in foreign language), show little strictness in
their internal organization. With sacred and profane images (mumbles), and sheets given to
Michelangelo and Boninelli, followed immediately by
others by Primatitio, d'Arpino, and Carracci. Some attempt does seem to have been made to keep works from a
particular school together. For instance, in the first book, we find sheets given
to Titian, Campagnola, Veronese and (mumbles). But then other Venetians,
(mumbles) and Tintoretto, appear in the second book. Even so, not enough
drawings from these albums have been identified
to allow us to draw any significant conclusions
about their organization. Even if only a fraction of
them are identified today, for the inventories both list
dozens of sheets now lost, a large enough part of
Christina's old masters survive in Haarlem, to
confirm the high esteem in which her collection of
drawings was traditionally held. But, as I pointed out earlier, most of these drawings were
acquired by her (mumbles), from with the Spiering albums, and not chosen personally,
according to her own taste. Thus, there are few Florentine
16th Century drawings, other than Michelango. No Pontormo, no Rosa, no,
or very little Vasari. It's really Michelangelo,
and nothing much else. That is, there's a reflection of what was available in the market, to Sandrart in the 1630's, or to Spiering in the Hague. But says nothing about
Christina's choices. To what extent, the Queen
added 16th Century drawings, once she had settled in Rome, is unfortunately unknown. As is the answer to the
question we must consider next. What 17th Century drawings
did Christina own? And here, we face an almost
complete lack of documentation. There's no inventories to help us. No collector's mark. No descriptions in the sources. Christina did continue
to add to the collection. That is, for instance, there is a report, about which Miss Hughes spoke just now, that she helped herself, precisely how isn't certain, to some of the choice drawings that her court artist
David Beck had assembled, while in her service. She bought the Genoese collection
of the Imperiali family in 1660's, paintings, but
there seems to have been one album of drawings accompanying them. And in 1670, her accounts show her buying another album of drawings from a certain Bartolomeo Ponzi. We know nothing of its contents. And finally, 1685, the Spanish ambassador,
Marques del Carpio, gave her a drawing from his
own extensive collection. (speaks in foreign language) This is all we know about Christina's collecting activity in Rome. This positive documentation has led some scholars to question whether Christina possessed
any modern drawings at all. Others hold the opposite view. They say that the Queen of Sweden, who, according to all the biographies, and stories and anecdotes, had excellent, friendly
relations with artists like Bernini, Pietro da Cortona, and all the prominent painters
and sculptors in Rome, must have collected their drawings, because she couldn't buy their paintings. She didn't have enough money
for big scale patronage, and therefore, must have
collected their drawings. And they point to two important groups of 17th Century drawings by these masters, presently in Leipzig, in the Museum der bildenden Kunste, and in Haarlem. Two groups of drawings
that have traditionally been believed to come from Christina. And as we've seen, that provenance is, has been corroborated, for at least the Renaissance drawings, for those in Haarlem. At this point, it is
necessary to delve briefly, into the very complex afterlife
of the Royal collection. After her death, on the
19th of April, 1689, the Queen was found to have bequeathed the bulk of her estate to her
good friend and confidante, and Father Confessor,
Cardinal Decio Azzolino, who had been, as it were, her Prime Minister since
her arrival in Rome, 30-odd years earlier. The good Cardinal did not, however, get to enjoy Christina's
inheritance for any length of time. He, himself, died less
than two months later, on the 8th of June, 1689. And thus, it was his cousin,
Marchese Pompeo Azzolino, from Fermo in the Marches, who became heir to the vast estate left by the Queen of Sweden. Consider his position. Here was a deeply provincial nobleman, suddenly saddled with a royal legacy of European size and
splendor, a legacy which, aside from the treasures
in the Palazzo Riario, was comprised of the Swedish Crown Jewels, pawned in Amsterdam, large estates in the South of Sweden and Northern Germany, that the Swedish government had long been trying to get its hands on. All the sundry complications, pertaining to a royal household, and huge outstanding debts. No question, then, that
Azzolino had to divest himself of as much of this as possible, in short order. Donato Montanari has written, eloquently and entertainingly, about the delicate negotiations that Azzolino entered into with Princes and Monarchs all over Europe. Both the Elector of Brandenburg, and William III of Orange, at one point expressed interest, although Louis XIV politely declined. But buyers were finally found, in Rome itself. Christina's library was ceded to Cardinal Ottoboni, soon to be Pope. And Prince Livio Odescalchi, Oh, I'm sorry, this is funny. I thought she, oh, I'm going too far. Well, I thought I had this
image, but you will see later. Livio Odescalchi, the wealthy
nephew of a previous Pope, agreed to pay the sum of 123,000 scudi, for the remaining contents
of Palazzo Riario. This was in 1692, three years
after Christina's death. The bill of sale specifies the
statues, ancient and modern, the pictures, tapestries,
bronzes, medals, coins, that were part of the deal. However, it specifically
excludes the drawings, stating that, quote, "Drawings are not part of the sale, "but are added as a gift." End quote. "And furthermore," it says, "no claims are to be based on the fact "that certain sheets
may perhaps be missing." (audience laughter) Presumably, the inventories
went along with the collection. This must mean, as Montanari has deduced, that Azzolino had already
sold or given away a number of drawings, perhaps
whole albums full of them. We simply don't know. And indeed, a number of important sheets, in other collections, other
than Haarlem, or Leipzig, can be traced to Christina's albums. Sheets that were never part
of the Odescalchi collection. This one, by Raphael, now in the Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, is punctually described recto and verso, in the inventory of Christina's
book of Raphael drawings. And in 1702, the Roman diary
of Francesco Valesio, writes about several (speaks in
foreign language) by Raphael, that Azzolino still had
from the Queen's collection. One of them, oops. It's a tricky thing. One of them may have been this famous sheet now in the
Royal Library at Windsor. Fully described by Nicodemus Tessin, who saw it in 1687, in Christina's album. The Queen's collection of
master drawings, therefore, did not reach Livio
Odescalchi intact in 1692. This means that it is certainly possible that drawings formerly
belonging to the Queen of Sweden were among the miscellaneous objects, bronzes, antiquities, books, that the dealer Francesco Renzi sold in 1714 to the City of Leipzig, where they remain to this day. In the 18th Century, they were reported to
have come from Christina. The material in Leipzig
is a very mixed bunch, with many late-17th Century drawings, of mostly antiquarian interest. Copies after medals, after
objects found in the catacombs, portraits of famous men,
designs for ornaments, as well as outright copies after Raphael, (speaks in foreign language). However, the Leipzig albums
also contain important series, which should come on the screen now, yes, with sketches and
studies by Salvator Rosa, and by Bernini, two artists Christina is known to
have admired very much. Could the Leipzig albums have
been formed by the Queen? The evidence is circumstantial,
inconclusive, and, frankly, too complex to go into here. Suffice it to say that
it is not to be excluded, but perhaps not very likely, that part of Christina's
drawings ended up in Leipzig. The bulk of her collection, though, went to Livio Odescalchi. And there, we encounter a
second complicating factor. For Odescalchi, as (mumbles)
was the first to show, was, himself, an avid collector, who added many thousands of sheets to those he bought from
Christina's estate. And their collections, now, have become almost impossible to separate. At best, one can try to separate, to separate say, Cento drawings, that Odescalchi is
certain to have acquired, independent of Christina's inheritance. There are sheets in Haarlem, that, oh, there is his portrait, I'm sorry, Anyway, here you see Livio Odescalchi in an engraving with a
frame drawn by Maratti, and he is the artist
that I wanted to get to, because in 1691, before he buys the estate of Christina, the account books show
that Livio Odescalchi bought an album with 28
drawings by Carlo Maratti, from a certain Antonio Politti. Many of the more than 20
Maratti drawings now in Haarlem may stem from this purchase. And this sketch, by Maratti's
pupil, Giuseppe Passeri, can be dated very precisely to 1690. That is the year after the Queen's death. In that year, Passeri,
accompanied Padre Resta, on a trip through Northern Italy, copying the chalked paintings
that they had admired in cities they visited. Here, he reproduces a painting you have recognized immediately, which was then in a church
in Correnggio's home town. It was Resta who added the
inscription at lower right. The sheet stems from an album that Livio Odescalchi
acquired from Resta in 1710. It was entitled (speaks
in foreign language). From the same, now dismembered volume, must come numerous other
drawings in Haarlem that carry Resta's
unmistakable annotations, such as this sketch by Algardi, for a stucco relief of about 1645. We know Resta owned this one, because it remained on part
of its old page of the album, with Resta's annotation, "Domenichino, Sant'Andrea, on reverso." An annotation which allows us, in turn, to propose a Resta provenance, likewise, for this sheet by
Domenichino, which is a study, precisely for the fresco in Sant'Andrea, (speaks in foreign language). A strong case can be made also that is to Odescalchi that
we owe the more than 300 landscape drawings by
Italian artists in Haarlem, including large groups by
Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, and Crescenzio Onofri. Both artists were admittedly
linked with Christina. Grimaldi designed a frontispiece
with the Royal Arms, and was involved in numerous
theatrical performances that the Queen attended, while Onofri frescoed
a room in her palace. And in theory, she could definitely have collected their drawings, but the inventory of
the Queen's paintings, her picture galleries fully
inventoried and well-known, that inventory doesn't indicate
any particular fondness for landscape as a genre. Whereas Livio Odescalchi was
passionate about landscape, owning numerous canvasses by
practitioners of the genre, such as (speaks in foreign language). Well before he bought
Christina's inheritance. It feels far more likely that it was he, rather than the Queen, who acquired the landscape
drawings now in Haarlem. Including the splended
series of over 80 studies, by the greatest of them
all, Claude Lorrain. And finally, we've finally been, we've recently been able
to identify an admittedly modest portrait drawing, that nonetheless has some
historical significance. It portrays Livio Odescalchi himself. As comparison, with the undated engraving by Benolt Frajat, made with the same set of shows, and with Monnot's sculptured relief of 1695 in the Louvre. Subject and chronology thus tie this unassuming portrait drawing clearly to Livio Odescalchi,
and not Christina. In the absence, therefore,
of positive proof, that any of the 17th Century drawings, 17th Century Italian
drawings now in Haarlem, of which a sample is on the screen now, ever belonged to Queen Christina. And faced with the best
circumstantial evidence, that the Leipzig albums
stem from her collection, we must conclude, I mean, that her role as a
collector of modern drawings remains as yet impossible to define. The attempt to pinpoint Christina's supposed collection of modern drawings, raises a larger issue. Namely, the changes that seem
to have gradually occurred, in the collecting
activities of Roman elite during her lifetime. The question, to what extent drawings, by living artists or
those recently deceased were available on the Roman
market in later 17th Century, has not really been addressed fully yet. And were they considered as
desirable, as collectible, as sheets by established
Renaissance masters, would an elite collector,
a Cardinal or a Prince, or even the Queen, have considered studies
by their contemporaries worth adding to their holdings? From the thousands of
drawings his, whoops. There, another selection. When the thousands of
drawings left by Domenichino, his own studies and
cartoons, plus 100's of those by his revered teacher, Annibale Carracci, came on the market in Rome in the 1660's, it was two artists, Pier Francesco Mola, and Carlo Maratti, who
acquired the most of them. Not any Prince or Cardinal,
let alone Queen Christina. And the same with the
Angeloni drawings by Carracci, that Pierre Mignard took to France. All but the most dedicated
princely collectors, it seems, tended to buy their drawings in albums, put together for them by
(speaks in foreign language), such as Filippo Baldinucci,
(mumbles) Renzi, Sebastiano Resta. The most famous of them. Resta's albums, insofar as they survive, may be indicative. One, for instance, the
one that is still intact, in Milan, which was sent to Milan in 1706, the Galleria Portatile in the Ambrosiana, attempts to present a complete panorama of the evolution of Italian drawing, a very Vasarian or Gaudiesque idea, from (mumbles) to the present day. But the part reserved for present day tends to be quite small. Out of 250 sheets in the Milan codex, only about 10 are by
late-17th Century artists, and those mainly by artists
that Resta knew intimately, namely, Maratti, again, and Passeri. Yet things were clearly changing during Christina's lifetime. Witness the fact that Livio Odescalchi, as I mentioned earlier, in 1691, bought an album full
of Maratti drawings precisely, and when the artist was still
very much alive and kicking. These changing patterns
need further investigation. One way in which someone
like Christina of Sweden might obtain drawings by living artists, would be to commission them. Her contemporary, the Spanish
Ambassador del Carpio, did exactly that, but only occasionally, for frontispieces for his albums. Another way would of course be, to obtain drawings as gifts. And here we are on firmer ground. It is well known, thanks to the diary that Chantelou kept during Bernini's stay in Paris in 1665, that the great master of the Roman baroque regularly gave the Queen drawings via, sent by his hand. One day, Bernini showed Chantelou
a drawing of Saint Jerome, most likely this one now in the Louvre, that he had made the previous evening, in order to present it to
Prime Minister Colbert. And Chantelou quotes Bernini, saying, that each year in Rome, he made
three drawings like this. One for the Pope. One for the Queen of Sweden. And a third for Cardinal Kicci, and he presented them
to them on the same day. But frustratingly, what
became of the drawings Bernini gave to Christina? They are not in Haarlem. There is one important
autographed Bernini there. This designed for the Blood of
Christ late work by Bernini, that belonged to Cardinal Azzolino. It's mentioned in his inventory. Nor do I believe it possible to identify Christina's missing Bernini presentation drawings among
the studies and sketches now in Leipzig. It seems hard to imagine, that the most famous artist of the day would present a Royal person with mere sketches and rough drafts, however much we may admire
their power and vigor today. These are not the sorts of drawings artists showed their
patrons in the 17th Century. The Leipzig material, with many works and drawings, surely comes from an album put together after Bernini's death. And the same goes for
the numerous drawings by Bernini, excuse me, by
Guercino now in Haarlem. We know Christina met the aging master when she stopped in Bologna
on her way to Rome in 1655. (mumbles) says that she
"wanted to touch the hand "that had wrought masterpieces." But it is impossible to believe that the small fragments and
sketches and counterproofs, among the more extensive
Guercinesque material in Haarlem, could ever have been
thought worthy of a Queen. Had Guercino wanted to give
her a sample of his art, he would surely have
produced something like this, this extraordinary sheet
in colored strokes. But this masterpiece is in
the Morgan, not at Haarlem. (audience chuckles) To conclude, there is no
doubt that Christina of Sweden owned an impressive and
even spectacular collection of 16th Century drawings,
including masterpieces by many of the great Renaissance masters, from Michelangelo to Goltzius. She acquired the majority of these at the start of her reign in 1651, from Pieter Spiering. Now we do not know to what extent the contents of those albums corresponded to her personal choices or taste. She certainly seems to have been knowledgeable about drawings, and may well have taken a personal
interest in the collection. But it remains uncertain whether
she actively added drawings by Italian artists of her own day, when she settled in the Papal City. We must hope that a
fortunate archival discovery will one day shed new
light on this matter. And at the same time, continue to investigate and analyze patterns of collecting
in 17th Century Italy, and a hope of learning more about this legendary Queen's
personal taste and choices. Thank you. (audience applause)
