The Worship of the Golden Calf, c. 1594

The painting depicts the events of Exodus 32, with the main events of the story appearing in the middle and background. In the center middle ground, the Israelites watch as the high priest Aaron collects golden ornaments for the making of an idol in the form of a golden calf, which he is shown casting in the far background. In the left background, the completed calf is displayed upon an altar, surrounded by worshippers; in the center right background are scenes of feasting and merrymaking. In the far upper right, the now-truncated figure of Moses on Mount Sinai (see Technical Summary) is bathed in a fiery light as he receives the Ten Commandments. In the foreground, to the left and right, are richly dressed revelers and observers. The man at the far upper left looking out of the scene appears to be a portrait.

Around the time of its purchase by the Kress Foundation in 1935, The Worship of the Golden Calf was attributed to Jacopo Tintoretto in manuscript opinions from Roberto Longhi, Giuseppe Fiocco, Raimond van Marle, August L. Mayer, F. Mason Perkins, Wilhelm Suida, Adolfo Venturi, and Bernard Berenson, most of whom considered it an early work.[1]  [1]
Those dating it were Roberto Longhi (early); Giuseppe Fiocco (1545–1548); Raimond van Marle (later part of Tintoretto’s early career); August L. Mayer (c. 1545–1548); and Wilhelm Suida (beginning of the 1540s). Copies of all manuscript opinions are in NGA curatorial files. The autograph status of the work was affirmed in 1950 by Rodolfo Pallucchini, who dated it to circa 1555 or later, and by Berenson in 1957.[2]  [2]
Rodolfo Pallucchini, La giovinezza del Tintoretto (Milan, 1950), 153; Bernard Berenson, Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Venetian School (London, 1957), 1:183. Subsequent scholars have moved away from the early dating and seen signs of studio assistance. Pierluigi De Vecchi classified it as by Jacopo with collaboration from circa 1560. Fern Rusk Shapley, too, considered it a largely studio work from circa 1560, but because of the vigor of the underpainting, suggested that Jacopo laid in the principal figures and supervised the execution. Pallucchini and Paola Rossi acknowledged considerable studio assistance, while retaining the attribution to Jacopo and the date of circa 1555.[3]  [3]
Pierluigi De Vecchi, L’opera completa del Tintoretto (Milan, 1970), 101, no. 139; Fern Rusk Shapley, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XVI–XVIII Century (London, 1973), 54–55; Fern Rusk Shapley, Catalogue of the Italian Paintings (Washington, DC, 1979), 1:471–472; Rodolfo Pallucchini and Paola Rossi, Tintoretto: Le opere sacre e profane (Venice, 1982), 1:171, no. 180.

Hans Tietze, in 1948, took a different view, dating the picture late in the century and relating it to the style of Marco Tintoretto.[4]  [4]
Hans Tietze, Tintoretto: The Paintings and Drawings (New York, 1948), 381. See also the discussion of Marco in Hans Tietze and Erica Tietze-Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries (New York, 1944), 294–295. In an undated letter in NGA curatorial files, Tietze and Tietze-Conrat conclude that the picture is by a younger artist under the influence of Tintoretto’s late style. More recently, Bert W. Meijer has attributed the landscape to Paolo Fiammingo (Pauwels Franck; 1540–1596); noting that the painting is usually dated to the 1550s and that Paolo was not documented in Venice before the 1570s, he commented that either the landscape was added later or the whole painting dates from some time after Paolo’s arrival.[5]  [5]
Bert W. Meijer, “Flemish and Dutch Artists in Venetian Workshops: The Case of Jacopo Tintoretto,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Dürer, Bellini, and Titian, ed. Bernard Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown (Milan, 1999), 143. On Paolo Fiammingo see Bert W. Meijer, “Paolo Fiammingo tra indigeni e ‘forestieri’ a Venezia,” Prospettiva 32 (1983): 20–32; Stefania Mason Rinaldi, “Paolo Fiammingo,” Saggi e memorie di storia dell’arte 11 (1978): 45–80; Bert W. Meijer, “Paolo Fiammingo Reconsidered,” Mededelingen von het Nederlands Institut te Rome 37 (1975): 117–130. Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman assigned the picture to the Tintoretto studio, 1592 or later, agreeing that the landscape suggests the work of a northern painter.[6]  [6]
Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, “Toward a New Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of Revised Attributions and a New Chronology,” in Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del congreso internacional/Proceedings of the International Symposium, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, February 26–27, 2007 (Madrid, 2009), 144, no. S52.

The judgment of the picture first made by Tietze (although not his specific link to the name of Marco Tintoretto) remains convincing. Like a number of works assigned in the past to Tintoretto in his early years or around 1555, The Worship of the Golden Calf is the work of a later, different hand.[7]  [7]
For other works by followers that were mistakenly considered by Rodolfo Pallucchini and Paola Rossi to be autograph, see Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, “Toward a New Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of Revised Attributions and a New Chronology,” in Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del congreso internacional/Proceedings of the International Symposium, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, February 26–27, 2007 (Madrid, 2009), 97. While the figure types are generically similar to those of Tintoretto, they lack the dynamism and convincing anatomy that appear in the master’s autograph paintings.[8]  [8]
See Robert Echols, “Tintoretto the Painter,” in Tintoretto, ed. Miguel Falomir (Madrid, 2007), 28–29; Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, “Toward a New Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of Revised Attributions and a New Chronology,” in Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del congreso internacional/Proceedings of the International Symposium, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, February 26–27, 2007 (Madrid, 2009), 99. The figures in the Gallery’s painting can be contrasted to Tintoretto’s powerful and dynamic figures in his treatment of the Making of the Golden Calf (Madonna dell’Orto, Venice); Rodolfo Pallucchini and Paola Rossi, Tintoretto: Le opere sacre e profane (Venice, 1982), 1: cat. no. 236; Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, “Toward a New Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of Revised Attributions and a New Chronology,” in Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del congreso internacional/Proceedings of the International Symposium, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, February 26–27, 2007 (Madrid, 2009), no. 78. The loose brushwork in the highlights is a weak imitation of Tintoretto’s fluid calligraphy. Moreover, a distinctive hand seems to be present here, one that cannot be identified in other works associated with Tintoretto. It is detectable in the principal faces, the overall pastel tonalities, the northern qualities of the landscape, and the shiny texture of the fabrics on the two principal figures.

The overall composition is loosely based upon the Gathering of the Manna of 1592/1594, still in the church for which it was created, San Giorgio Maggiore, and one of the last works produced by the Tintoretto studio during Jacopo’s lifetime [fig. 1]   [fig. 1] Jacopo Tintoretto and Workshop, The Gathering of the Manna, 1592/1594, oil on canvas, Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, inside the Basilica of San Giorgio Maggiore. Photo: Mauro Magliani. That painting also features repoussoir figures at either side, with a series of vignettes carrying the narrative into the background. Particularly close is the treatment of space in the upper center of the painting, with a round hillock and a view of figures in a covered area (a grotto in the San Giorgio Maggiore painting, a tent in the Gallery’s picture).

All of this evidence suggests that The Worship of the Golden Calf was painted in the Tintoretto studio around the time of Jacopo Tintoretto’s death in 1594, or possibly later, when the shop was headed by Domenico Tintoretto. The northern quality of the landscape, along with the sheen of the fabrics, suggests an artist from beyond the Alps. Meijer’s attribution of the landscape to Paolo Fiammingo seems apposite; however, the figure types and the technique used to render them differ from those in Paolo’s paintings. It is possible that Paolo painted the landscape, but it seems more likely, given the probable date, that the entire painting was executed by another northern artist, perhaps one who had also worked with Paolo. A number of northern artists seem to have come and gone in Tintoretto’s studio; however, the role of northern artists in the body of paintings associated with Tintoretto is a complicated question that has only recently begun to receive the attention it merits.[9]  [9]
See generally Robert Echols, “Tintoretto, Christ at the Sea of Galilee, and the Unknown Later Career of Lambert Sustris,” Venezia Cinquecento 6, no. 12 (1996): 93–149; Bert W. Meijer, “Flemish and Dutch Artists in Venetian Workshops: The Case of Jacopo Tintoretto,” in Renaissance Venice and the North: Crosscurrents in the Time of Dürer, Bellini, and Titian, ed. Bernard Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown (Milan, 1999), 132–143; Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman, “Toward a New Tintoretto Catalogue, with a Checklist of Revised Attributions and a New Chronology,” in Jacopo Tintoretto: Actas del congreso internacional/Proceedings of the International Symposium, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, February 26–27, 2007 (Madrid, 2009), 107–109.

Robert Echols

March 21, 2019