Beschreibung
MATERIA MEDICA WITH IMPECCABLE PROVENANCE. Watercolor, gouache and ink on paper (15 1/8" x 10 5/8", 383mm x 269mm (sheet); 26 1/4" x 20 7/16" (frame)), mounted, glassed and framed. Numbered twice: once as "753." immediately following the title and once as "323,"immediately below the bottom of the stem. Mildly evenly tanned overall, perhaps from the adhesive. A small abrasion at the center of the sheet, not affecting the image. Mounted in the collection of King George III, in his characteristic brown water-color borders. Prince Federico Cesi (1585-1630) was, at the age of 18, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, Italy's preeminent academic society. The Lincei (Italian for lynx, chosen for its sharp vision) -- whose leading light, Galileo, appended "Linceo" to his signature -- had a particular interest in natural history; their first publication was a treasury of Mexican plants and animals. Indeed, the present sheet is a constituent part of one of their unrealized projects, a vast illustrated botanical encyclopedia called the "erbario miniato" (illuminated herbal). The numeration -- especially the "323" at the bottom of the stem -- corresponds to the other paintings from the collection. That unpublished work joined the vast Museo Cartaceo of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), a Wunderkammer of works on paper embracing not only natural history but also ancient history. By way of a précis of the progress of the Museo (see McBurney 1988): In 1703, dal Pozzo's grand-nephew Cosimo Antonio sold the whole of it to Pope Clement XI, but the Vatican Library was unable to pay in full. The Museo was then sold to Clement's nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Albani in 1714. He then sold (nearly ) all of it to George III. The early Royal Library -- George III's collection at then Buckingham House (now Buckingham Palace) -- split the collection according to subject matter. In 1834, the volumes that had remained the collection (George IV gave many to the nation) were moved to the new Royal Library at Windsor Castle, and in 1860 they were transferred to the Print Room, designed by Prince Albert overlooking the castle's north terrace. The volumes remained there through, it seems, the First World War; shortly thereafter the Royal Librarian Sir John Fortescue -- keeping no records, sadly -- sold off as many as fifteen of the dal Pozzo volumes in order to pay for maintenance of the remaining collection. By 1937 some volumes were in the stock of the dealer Jacob Mendelson, who, according to Henrietta McBurney, likely broke and dispersed them. Anthony Blunt, then Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, corresponded from 1961 with an American called James Herbert Boone, who wrote that he had "sixty or one hundred" of the sheets, presumably from Mendelson. Boone's promise to send photographs was unfulfilled at his death. He had donated them to Johns Hopkins University, which then sold them all via Sotheby's New York 16 September 1988; the present item was part of lot 135. Now to the picture itself: a single stem of flowering costmary (Tanacetum balsamita, syn. Balsamita major). McBurney (illustrating our sheet as pl. 46) has called the hand "somewhat crude," although it is perhaps better described as amateur, albeit with a fine sense of color and opacity. The caption (by tradition, in the hand of Cesi himself) reads, in English: "Greek mint. 753. Saint Mary's herb, according to Matthioli "Menta greca," the extract of which herb, when drunk, kills worms within the body; it helps with the frigidness of the mother. It fortifies the stomach when drunk thus, when applied as an external poultice and seriously arrests vomiting." The name only comes from Matthioli; the description appears to come from Castore Durante's 1585 Herbario nuovo (p. 286). Costmary was used as a strewing herb (scattered on floors to arouse a pleasant aroma when traversed), as well as an additive to beer (another English name is "alecost") before the introduction of hops. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers JLR0512
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