JUSTUS SUTTERMANS

(Antwerp 1597 – 1681 Florence)

Domenica delle Cascine, la Cecca di Pratolino, and Pietro Moro

Oil on canvas
36 x 32 ½ inches (91.3 x 82.5 cm)

Provenance:   

(Possibly) Palazzo Pitti, by 1638 and until at least 1761

(Possibly) Private Collection, France

“Property of a Family,” by whom consigned to Sotheby’s, London, 27 October 2015, lot 535, as Studio of Justus Sustermans

 Art market, London

Literature:

(Possibly) Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, ed. Ferdinando Ranalli, Florence, 1845-1847, vol. 4, pp. 481 and 508.

The career of Justus Suttermans, or Sustermans as he is also known, is intimately associated with the Medici family, for whom he worked for over sixty years. The preponderance of official commissions to Suttermans—particularly portraits of the Grand Dukes, their wives and children—secured the artist’s reputation locally, but limited recognition of his talent internationally, and for generations to come. Succinctly put in the Dictionary of Art, “During his lifetime Giusto Suttermans (as he signed his name), court painter to the Medici, was considered the foremost portrait painter in Italy, the peer of van Dyck, Rubens or Holbein. His best works show that he deserved his contemporaries’ esteem, but time, the extinction of the Medici family, and the failure of art historians to recognize the difference between his autograph works and those by his workshop, copyists and contemporary Florentine painters have all contributed to tarnish his once high reputation.”[1]

As might be expected for a painter at a vibrant court, Suttermans’ work was not limited to the grand, somewhat stolid portraits in their elaborate palatina frames familiar to visitors to the Pitti Palace in Florence. His oeuvre included religious paintings, the huge history painting The Florentine Senate’s Pledge of Allegiance to Ferdinando II de’ Medici, copies of works by Titian and Annibale Carracci, portraits of clerics and individuals (most notably, Galileo and the oft-reproduced Valdemar Christian of Denmark), and two what might loosely be called genre group portraits. One, Ritrovo di cacciatori (Galleria Palatina, Florence) depicts six well-to-do men (all identifiable), handsomely dressed and armed for the hunt, gathered around a table, proudly displaying the game that they have recently bagged. Suttermans’ second composition of this type is by contrast highly unusual for its date in its depiction of three court servants in an informal setting, for their enigmatic relationship, and for the fact that one of them is a handsome Black youth presented sympathetically and sensitively. 

The present work is a newly discovered autograph version of that composition, previously known from a painting in the Uffizi (Fig. 1), which was only identified as by Suttermans in 1977.[2] Both paintings are of equivalent size and quality, and the title—Domenica delle Cascine, la Cecca di Pratolino, and Pietro Moro—comes from Medici inventories recording both canvases. The naming of the three subjects is especially significant, since not only is it uncommon for the identity of court attendants depicted in paintings to be known, but it is extraordinarily rare for the name of a Black figure to come down to us. 

The painting presents the figures three-quarter length in a tightly grouped composition. At left, an elderly woman wearing a fluidly painted brimmed hat holds a duck in one hand and grasps the beads of a rosary in the other. A large key dangles in front of the apron that she wears. The central figure, slightly younger perhaps, looks back at the figure on the left while holding a small basket containing eggs, greens, and what seem to be root vegetables (although thought by some to be breadsticks). The two contadine are set slightly forward and seem both unaware that the Black youth standing behind them is pilfering one of the vegetables from the basket with his left hand, while making a gesture of contempt with his right, visible just above the central figure’s shoulder. Suttermans’ painting is an essay on contrasts. The women are dressed in simple clothing and muted colors, their age made apparent by their wrinkled faces and weathered necks and hands, rendered with dense, parallel brushstrokes. The Black youth, by comparison, wears impressive pear-shaped pearl earrings and a lavish mauve cloak articulated with vibrant blue stripes (Fig. 2). His dress further references his race, as African servants were habitually depicted wearing striped garments, as seen, for example, in a near-contemporary Florentine painting by il Volterrano (Fig. 3).[3]

Pietro Moro’s smooth skin contrasts starkly with the crabbed appearance of the women, who relate only to each other, while the youth engages the viewer, making us complicit with his actions. This work is singular in Suttermans’ oeuvre in its Caravaggism. The intense treatment of both the light and shadows sets the figures in high relief against the plain background and sharpens the evident contradistinction of them. 

The Uffizi painting was first identified as by Suttermans by Marco Chiarini, who associated it with a painting recorded in the collection of Carlo de’ Medici at the time of his death in 1666:

“…Un quadro in tela… entrovi Mona Domenica delle Cascine La Ceccha di Pratolino e il Moro dicesi di mano di monù Giusto con adonam : o nero filettato d’Oro.”[4]

 While it was first assumed that the Uffizi painting was the sole version of the composition, Lisa Goldenberg Stoppato established that Suttermans treated the subject twice. In addition to the painting recorded in Carlo de Medici’s collection, a second version appears in several inventories of the Palazzo Pitti, first in 1638 and for the last time in 1761.[5] Filippo Baldinucci included this painting in a list of works by Suttermans that Cosimo III planned to include in a 1678 exhibition at the Palazzo Pitti to honor the painter.[6] That contemporaneous inventories place paintings of the same description in different locations—one in the in the apartment of Grand Duke Ferdinando II in the Palazzo Pitti and the other in the collection of Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici at the Casino di San Marco—confirms that Suttermans painted at least two versions of this work.[7] It seems likely (but not absolutely assured) that Carlo de’ Medici’s painting is that currently in the Uffizi, while the present painting is that once in Palazzo Pitti. It is not possible to state which of the two paintings was painted first.

All three figures depicted in the painting are recorded in Medici account books. How they are identified—notably, without traditional surnames—reflects their status as dependents at the Medici court. Domenica delle Cascine—sometimes known as Menica—was paid for provisions brought to the court, as well as for comic performances (“fare il Buffone”).[8] Her designation is toponymic: “Le Cascine” was a farming estate along the Arno to the west of Florence (it is now a park), where she no doubt worked. Cecca (short for Francesca) di Pratolino is similarly recorded for providing food stuffs to the Medici. Her name reflects her being domiciled at Pratolino, the Medici villa north of the city, used for hunting and recreation, where our picture was presumably painted (Fig. 4).[9] Pietro Moro take his name from the most common European descriptor for a person of color—moro [moor], a term derived from the ancient North African Kingdom known in Latin as Mauretania. A left-to-right reading of the painting would identify Domenica as the figure on the left, but as Claudio Pizzorusso has noted, the central figure in the foreground is generally mentioned first in such inventories, in what he calls a “perspectival reading” of the composition.[10]

Among the many inventory and documentary records of the two paintings, which almost invariably name Domenica and Cecca, Pietro Moro is identified only twice—first in the 1638 inventories of the Palazzo Pitti as Pietro Moro and subsequently in the 1688 inventory as Piero Moro.[11] Sadly, little is known about Pietro’s role and position at the Medici court. Paul Kaplan has studied Pietro’s depiction in this painting and several works produced by other artists active at the Medici court.[12] Initial archival research by Kaplan in the Medici account books have yielded several references to Pietro Moro (Fig. 5), but none detail the exact nature of the services for which he was paid. Regardless of his payment as a court servant, it is almost certainly the case that he arrived in Italy in an enslaved condition.

Interestingly, one of the payments discovered by Kaplan records that Pietro travelled to Villa Pratolino in July 1634: “A Pietro Moro lacche che ando a Pratolino uno scudo 1-” (Camera del Granduca 15a, 1633-34, 47r). The origin of our painting and its counterpart in the Uffizi has previously been associated with a letter from Giovan Carlo de’ Medici to his brother Matthias dated 30 September 1634. The letter relates that Suttermans had been staying at the Villa Pratolino and had been painting portraits of contadine, and that he was accompanied by fellow painter Giovanni da San Giovanni: “Nell’hore della quiete havevamo la ricreazione delle pitture, Giusto faceva ritratti di quelle contadine, che si è portato esquisitamente.”[13] The Medici primarily used the Villa Pratolino for hunting and leisure, and the artists were there painting as a source of entertainment during the summer months. The fact that Pietro travelled to Villa Pratolino in the July 1634 would seem to confirm that our painting and the Uffizi version are in fact those ritratti referenced in Giovan Carlo de’ Medici’s letter.

Suttermans’ composition has been consistently examined within the context of the burlesque tradition of Florentine painting that was inaugurated in the 1620s by Giovanni da San Giovanni, Jacques Callot, and Filippo Napoletano.[14] It has also been linked to Suttermans’ roots in Flanders, and iconographic models provided by the works of Pieter Aertsen, Joachim Bueckelaer, and Jacob Jordaens.[15] Pietro Moro both serves as a foil to the contadine and provides the central action and focus of the painting. He makes the contemptuous gesture with his hand—inserting his thumb between his index and middle finger with a closed fist (“far le fiche”). In other paintings of the period, the gesture of “le fiche” seems to have served as a warning for simpletons to distrust the charm of youth. Such is the case in Simon Vouet’s Fortune Teller of 1617, in which a young girl distracts a man by reading his palm while an old woman picks his pocket (Fig. 6). It had not been previously noticed in the Uffizi version, given the dark discoloration of the painting’s surface and the slight encroachment of frame on the pictorial field, that Pietro Moro steals from the basket while making the gesture of “le fiche.” While the theatricality of the composition may preclude us from reading into the scene as a reflection of everyday life at the Medici court, Suttermans’ unvarnished representation of the figures—closer in nature to portraiture than to genre painting—allows us to ask questions and make assumption about Pietro Moro’s status. His relatively elevated position at the Medici court is made evident by his dress and earrings. Additionally, the fact that he colludes with the viewer (originally, the Medici and their guests at Villa Pratolino) in the mockery of Domenica and Cecca certainly indicates a kind of agency above that of the contadine, but not necessarily inconsistent with the status of a servant or enslaved person, though one clearly esteemed at court.

Still the overall meaning of the subject remains elusive. We can see the differences among the three individuals—two elderly and somewhat grotesque white women and one young and handsome Black youth. We can note the objects associated with each—a key, a duck, rosary beads, a basket, eggs, greens, vegetables—but with only a vague idea of their significance here, symbolic or otherwise. We observe the figures’ movement and gestures, their engagement with each other and the viewer (or lack of it). But the painting still amounts to a visual puzzle, one awaiting deciphering. Was there a literary construct behind this, a comical situation depicted? Is there a poem or proverb illustrated, or perhaps an actual event recorded, whether in admiration or mockery? Is there a moralistic message, one with social, sexual, racial import? 

Dr. Claudio Pizzorusso has studied the present painting firsthand and has authored a catalogue entry in which he writes: “This canvas is an important addition to the story of one of the most singular works by Justus Suttermans, the triple portrait of Domenica delle Cascine, Cecca di Pratolino and Pietro Moro…It is fully comparable to the version in the Uffizi of almost identical dimensions and maintains the same highly naturalistic style in the descriptive rendering of the faces.”[16]

We are grateful as well to Dr. Paul Kaplan, who has shared his research on Pietro Moro. He has noted that in our painting “the figure of Pietro Moro is perhaps even more engaging than in the previously known version” (written communication, 10 August 2020). He has also drawn attention to other depictions of Pietro Moro, though at different ages. These include his depiction as a page holding a helmet in Suttermans’ Portrait of Francesco II de’ Medici (Fig. 7) and in the fresco decoration by Agostino Mitelli and Angelo Michele Colonna of the Sala della Pubblica Udienza on the ground floor of the Pitti (Fig. 8).

[1] Lisa Goldenberg Stoppato, “Suttermans [Susterman; Sustermans; Sutterman], Giusto [Josse; Juste; Justus],” in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, vol. 30, Oxford, 1996, p. 39.

[2] Marco Chiarini, “An Unusual Subject by Justus Sustermans,” Burlington Magazine, vol. 119, no. 1 (1977), pp. 40-41.

[3] Other notable examples include the Black attendants in Titian’s Diana and Actaeon (National Gallery, London) and Portrait of Laura Dianti (Private Collection). See: Michel Pastoureau, The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes, New York, 2001. We are grateful to Paul Kaplan for these references.

[4] Archivio di Stato, Guardaroba Mediceo, Filza 758 (1666), c.26. The dimensions given in this inventory.

[5] For a discussion of the inventory references for the painting exhibited at the Palazzo Pitti, see: Lisa Goldenberg Stoppato, The Grand Duke’s Portraitist: Cosimo II de’ Medici and his “Chamber of Paintings” by Giusto Suttermans, exh. cat., Florence, 2006, pp. 48-49. Goldenberg Stoppato suggested that after 1761 the painting may have been lost or sold off by either the Grand Duke Leopold of Lorraine or by Napoleon’s commissaries.

[6] Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, ed. Ferdinando Ranalli, Florence, 1845–1847, vol. 4, pp. 481 and 508.

[7] The existence of at least two autograph versions of the composition has been noted by Claudio Pizzorusso and Paul Kaplan. It is generally accepted that the Uffizi version is the painting from the collection of Carlo de’ Medici. The Uffizi painting was previously inventoried at the Florentine villa of Poggio Imperiale (no. 1356 red). Its arrival there is documented on 30 September 1780. It was transferred from the Medici Villa Ambrogiana, where it had been since at least 1732. Goldenberg Stoppato pointed out that the painting must have arrived at the Villa Ambrogiana after 1683, since it does not appear in the inventory of that year. Goldenberg Stoppato and Chiarini assumed that this painting had come from Cardinal Carlo de’ Medici’s collection from his Florentine home, the Casino di San Marco. Claudio Pizzorusso considers this hypothesis possibly correct, but he has noted that the inventory number (no. 452) from Carlo de’ Medici’s inventory does not appear on the Uffizi painting and the frame described on the painting in the Cardinal’s inventory and at the Villa Ambrogiana are different. These caveats are likely explained by the fact that the inventory numbers of Carlo de’ Medici’s paintings were either not applied to his works, or the inventory number may have been painted on a frame that was subsequently replaced.

[8] Goldenberg Stoppato, loc. cit.

[9] See: Webster Smith, “Pratolino,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 20, no. 4, 1961, pp. 155-168. The illustrated etching by Stefano della Bella comes from his series Views of the villa at Pratolino (Vues de la villa de Pratolino) New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Paul Kaplan has suggested that “Cecca,” rather than being a short form for Francesca, might indicate that she is sightless, “la cieca” meaning “the blind one” in Italian. This is supported both by the use of the definite article and by the unfocused gaze of her eyes (assuming she is the woman at the left). Her lack of awareness of Pietro Moro’s gesture would then add a layer of mockery to whatever comic intent might be intended. See: Paul H. D. Kaplan, “Bartolomeo Passarotti and ‘Comic’ Images of Black Africans in Early Modern Italian Art,” in No Laughing Matter. Visual Humor in Ideas of Race, Nationality, and Ethnicity, ed. Angela Rosenthal, David Bindman and Adrian W.B. Randolph, Hanover, 2016, p. 32.

[10] A catalogue entry on this painting by Claudio Pizzorusso is available upon request.

[11] The painting is listed in three inventories of the Palazzo Pitti from 1638. See: Goldenberg Stoppato, The Grand Duke’s Portraitist, p. 48.

[12] Paul H. D. Kaplan, “Pietro Moro: Images of a Medici Court Servant,” conference paper, RSA, Berlin, 2015; and Paul H. D. Kaplan, “Italy, 1490–1700,” in The Image of the Black in Western Art, ed. David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr., vol. 3, part 1, Cambridge, MA, 2010, pp. 93-190, 181-182.

[13] Letter from Giovan Carlo de’ Medici to Mattias de’ Medici, Florence, 30 September 1634 (ASF, Mediceo del Principato 5392, fol. 252.) See: Goldenberg Stoppato in Luce e Ombra: Caravaggismo e Naturalismo nella Pittura Toscana del Seicento, exh. cat., Pisa, 2005, pp. 86-88; and Goldenberg Stoppato, The Grand Duke’s Portraitist, p. 48.

[14] Chiarini, “An Unusual Subject by Justus Sustermans,” p. 41; and Marco Chiarini in Sustermans: Sessant’Anni alla Corte dei Medici, exh. cat., Florence, 1983, p. 54.

[15] Goldenberg Stoppato, The Grand Duke’s Portraitist, p. 48.

[16] “Questa tela fornisce un’importante acquisizione nelle vicende di una delle più singolari opere di Justus Suttermans, il triplice ritratto di Domenica delle Cascine, di Cecca di Pratolino e di Pietro Moro… L’opera qui presentata si affianca dunque a pieno titolo a quella degli Uffizi. Di dimensione pressoché uguali (la tela di Galleria misura senza la cornice cm. 90 x 85,3), questa versione mantiene lo stesso altissimo registro naturalistico nella cura descrittiva dei volti.”