National Gallery of Art, Washington, 20th November 2022– 12th February 2023 

Rumours abounded at the opening of the Carpaccio exhibition that the National Gallery of Art, Washington, had called a moratorium on old master exhibitions and that this would be the last for the foreseeable future. If this unsubstantiated gossip is true then the gallery’s fifty-year history of stellar exhibitions has gone out with a bang not a whimper. Both the installation and the catalogue are exemplary and much of the credit is due to the careful guidance of the exhibition’s curator, Peter Humfrey.[1] 

Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460/65–1526) worked in Venice at the turn of the sixteenth century, a contemporary of Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione and the young Titian. Yet unlike these stalwarts of the golden age of Venetian painting, he never enjoyed widespread acclaim outside of his native city until he was ‘rediscovered’ at the end of the nineteenth century by John Ruskin and Henry James. They were enthralled by the way Carpaccio captured the essence of Venice: her streets teeming with merchants from Europe and the exotic Middle East, the extravagant public processions, the marble-clad palaces and the fleets of ships crowding her harbours. ‘There is something ridiculous in talking about Venice’, wrote James, ‘without making [Carpaccio] almost the refrain’.[2] 

It was Carpaccio’s enchanting Dream of St Ursula (1495; Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice), showing the saint asleep in her little white bed, and the noble figure thought to be St Jerome (now identified as St Augustine) in his study (cat. no.29; Fig.11) that particularly caught James’s attention. Both are part of extensive narrative cycles painted by Carpaccio for the scuole or meeting halls of confraternities. He was to complete four such cycles, for the Scuola di Sant’Orsola (1490–98), the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni (also known as the Scuola Dalmata) (1501–12), the Scuola degli Albanesi (1502–07) and the Scuola di Santo Stefano (1511–20). He also participated in the decoration of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista (c.1496) and painted the now-lost canvases for the Sala del Maggior Consiglo in Palazzo Ducale (1501–07). It is in these works of monumental scale and scope that we find Carpaccio the consummate storyteller spinning out religious tales peppered with minutely attuned details from his daily experience. The window he opens onto his world remains as endearing today as it was to James. 

Not being able to borrow the majority of these narrative cycles raises the question as to whether or not the storytelling aspect of Carpaccio’s career can be adequately covered in a loan exhibition. The answer is surprisingly yes. In Washington the installation is judiciously balanced between smaller canvases with highly original takes on conventional subjects, drawings that illustrate the breath and scope of his draughtsmanship and a few particularly impressive narratives, arranged more or less chronologically. The exhibition opens with the reunited Two women on a balcony (no.13; Fig.12) and Fishing and fowling on the lagoon (no.14, Fig.13), which are displayed as they were originally intended, forming one panel of a door or folding screen. The empty stem in the vase on the balustrade matches up with the large lily blossom in the lower left of the hunting scene, which served as the picture’s background. Although in the past the women were unflatteringly described as courtesans, they now are interpreted as chaste wives awaiting the return of their husbands, who are enjoying a day of recreation in the background, hunting ducks and fish. Subtle references to marriage and betrothal are scattered across the scene on the balcony, including handkerchiefs, myrtle and orange plants, dogs, pearls, a parrot and turtledoves. Despite the seeming atmospheric authenticity, this is not an actual view from a Venetian balcony but an imagined scene of marital harmony. It is unlike anything else painted in Venice at the time and may have been inspired by a lost Netherlandish painting of ‘fishermen capturing an otter while two bystanders watched’ in the collection of the Paduan humanist Niccolò Leonico Tomeo, which was attributed to Jan van Eyck.[3] 

A number of works have been restored for the exhibition, including two canvases from the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. St Augustine in his study depicts the moment Augustine experienced a mystical vision of St Jerome’s death. As Augustine was sitting at his desk writing a letter to Jerome on the nature of celestial bliss, the room was suddenly flooded with a supernatural light and an ineffable fragrance. Carpaccio depicts Augustine in mid-action, his pen held aloft as he lifts his head toward the light streaming in from the window, casting long shadows across the room. The luminous effects had been carefully worked out in a preparatory drawing (c.1502–04; British Museum, London; no.36) but certain details were changed in the final painting. Most noticeably more books were added in the foreground and the pet ermine with a collar around his neck was changed to a fluffyfurred lapdog. The latter change must have been decided upon during the painting processes since the infra-red reflectogram reveals that Carpaccio had first sketched in the ermine. The dazzling richness of the scarlet, green and gold interior provides a visual foil for the collection of intricately described antique statuettes, pottery, seashells, arrows and mechanical instruments that fill the study. In the midst of these secular objects, it is the majestically enshrined figure of the risen Christ that alone signals the true pathway to celestial bliss. 

St George and the dragon (c.1504–07; no.30), also from the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, is a parable for the Venetians’ fight against the Ottoman Turks. According to the Golden Legend, a savage beast taunted the residents of Silene in Libya with his bad breath and demanded to be fed with livestock and children. In Carpaccio’s painting, snakes, toads and lizards slither amongst the abandoned corpses of the dragon’s prey, while in the background the next victim clutches her hands as St George charges to the rescue. So powerful is the thrust of his lance that it snaps on impact, causing the dragon’s blood to gush from his neck. The city at the left is a fanciful compilation of buildings copied from Erhard Reuwich’s woodcuts in Bernhard von Breydenbach’s Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (1486). For example, the multi-towered building at the centre is based on the church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem. In addition to using woodcuts as a source of inspiration, Carpaccio also made independent studies from life. A drawing on blue paper of a seated youth in armour (c.1500–05; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; no.32) is likely to have been a study for the figure of St George, even though he is facing in the opposite direction. 

The stellar quality of his paintings in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni is not upheld in the work Carpaccio produced at the same time for the Scuola degli Albanesi, composed of six scenes depicting the Life of the Virgin. Not only are these works, all six of which are included in the exhibition (nos.37–42), badly abraded but they are rightfully seen to have been mostly carried out by members of Carpaccio’s workshop using drawings supplied by the master. The extraordinary number of drawings by Carpaccio that survive gives us a unique insight into his working process. Not only did he make preparatory studies for entire compositions (nos.53, 60 and 66) but he must have kept a file on hand of individual figures drawn from life (nos.27 and 43), studies of heads and hands (no.64) and copies of figures and architectural motifs taken from prints (no.33). 

Carpaccio’s recycling of motifs is apparent in The Virgin reading (National Gallery of Art; no.50), which can be dated c.1510. Unconventionally, the Virgin is depicted wearing fashionable contemporary clothing. An identically dressed figure, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, appears in Birth of the Virgin from the Albanesi cycle (Accademia Carrara, Bergamo; no.37). The Albanesi picture was probably produced c.1502, which means that the figure was recycled some eight years later. Although none of Carpaccio’s drawings show this particular figure, infra-red reflectography reveals that he used a cartoon for the Virgin’s head. During the recent cleaning, old overpaint was removed to expose the partial figure of the Christ Child sitting on the ledge to the Virgin’s left. It remains unclear, however, to what extent the picture was cut down. 

The enigmatic Young knight (no.49; Fig.14) is dated 1510 but the identification of the sitter – if in fact this is a portrait at all – remains unknown. Most likely it represents a young man who participated in the War of the League of Cambrai (1508–16) and the highly detailed flora and fauna that surround him symbolise his military and moral prowess. However, as Humfrey rightfully points out in the catalogue it is unlikely that any viewer was meant to decode them all and that many plants, animals and objects could have more than one meaning. Unfortunately, as Carpaccio aged, the attention to detail found in the Young knight began to elude him. The background of the Flight into Egypt (National Gallery of Art, Washington; no.86) from around 1518 is hazy in comparison. It is painted with large swaths of light and shade and rather unrealistic cone-shaped hills. The catalogue entry compares it to Dürer’s woodcut of the same subject but in truth its composition is an amalgamation of Giotto’s fresco in the Arena Chapel in Padua and Titian’s Flight into Egypt (State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) of about ten years earlier. Although Carpaccio was not completely impervious to the innovations of Titian, he continued to paint in an unflagging quattrocento style until the end of his career. 

The National Gallery of Art should be applauded for producing a proper catalogue with well-considered entries for each work. All aspects of Carpaccio’s career are fully covered in the introductory essays, which discuss in detail his work for the confraternities, the sources behind his architectural creations, his work as a draughtsman and his painting technique as well as his reception in the nineteenth century. If there is any criticism at all, it is that the entries do not provide either the provenance or a selected bibliography. Some of this information is given in the text of the entries but it is unfortunate that little or no mention is made of the earlier exhibitions in which several of these paintings and drawings have been discussed. 

When the exhibition transfers to Palazzo Ducale, Venice, in March there will be a different group of drawings and variations in the selection of paintings, although these changes are not indicated in the catalogue.[4] The recently cleaned canvases depicting St Ambrose and St George will be returned to the Scuola degli Schiavoni so that the entire series can be seen together. One will also be able to visit the recently cleaned St Ursula cycle with its kaleidoscopic colours and the superb Miracle of the possessed boy at the Rialto in the Gallerie dell’Accademia. Although these works are discussed in the catalogue, the written word does not prepare one for their panoramic magnitude. Thirty-nine of Carpaccio’s documented paintings remain in Venice, and Save Venice, the American non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving Venetian art and architecture, has produced a handy portable guide to them.[5] Divided by sestieri (neighbourhoods) the book provides a comprehensive view of the places that Carpaccio frequented and the sites that once housed his work. For the most adventurous tourist, there is a one-day itinerary from dawn to dusk. The guide will certainly be easier to carry around Venice, but the magisterial catalogue with its detailed entries, ample comparative illustrations and in-depth analysis will remain a fundamental resource for Carpaccio studies. 

[1] Catalogue: Vittore Carpaccio: Master Storyteller of Renaissance Venice. By Peter Humfrey with contributions by Susannah Rutherglen, Sara Menato, Deborah Howard, Catherine Whistler, Joanna Dunn, Linda Borean and Andrea Bellieni. 352 pp. incl. 301 col. ills. (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2022), £45. ISBN 978–0–300–25447–1. 

[2] H. James: Italian Hours, ed. J. Auchard, University Park PA 1992, p.28. 

[3] T. Frimmel, ed.: Der Anonimo Morelliano (Marcanton Michiel’s Notizia d’opere del disegno), Vienna 1888, p.16. 

[4] The exhibition will be on view in Venice between 18th March and 18th June. 

[5] G. Matino and P.F. Brown: Carpaccio in Venice: A Guide, Venice 2020.