I might have agreed with you Cadla about mistaken provenance via family 'Chinese whispers' if only one did not consider....
Luchino was well educated in Art and History.
He had been selling artifacts of the Visconti since the 1920's.
His apparent fastidiousness and attention to detail in his creative work.
His love of luxury and his wide and varied contacts in the field of Art and Music; even though he became a luxury loving Communist.
He viewed himself as a Visconti aristocrat.

If he did not know who painted the cards, he appears to have made an assumption.Therefore why? I cannot tell from Kaplan what provenance was offered to Mr Cary when the cards were sold to him in 1947.
If he did not know the date of the Cary Yale, he made a date outside the usual consideration of 1450-ish.

Of course there is another view.
Mary Jones made an assumption herself. If so, it seems a strange thing to state the date so confidently.
It is a date I have seen mentioned elsewhere- but I do not know why it was considered.

~Lorredan

Lorredan wrote: If he did not know who painted the cards, he appears to have made an assumption.Therefore why?

Because he could. That's what so-called experts do in these matters.

Doesn't make it true, but they do like to make these associative leaps.

I'm a skeptic, there have to be a few around to bug the hell out of people.

The first time a description of the Visconti di Modrone/Cary Yale was published was in 1831, by Leopoldo Cicognara, Memorie spettanti alla storia della calcografia, pp. 152-157. He asserted that the figures on the Love card were Filippo Maria Visconti and Beatrice de Tenda, who were married in 1412 (pp. 153-154).

He is speculating, not passing on old tradition. This is clear from his language. He says "Le figure degli sposi sono il duca Filippo Maria... l'altra dovrebb'essere la sua prima moglie Beatrice Tenda vedova di Facino Cane..."

The figures of the spouses are duke Filippo Maria... the other should be / is probably Beatrice Tenda, widow of Facino Cane.

This seems to have invented the "wedding deck" idea. Later authors changed it to 1428 because of the symbols of the baldachino - a Visconti biscione, and what they interpreted as the shield of Savoy - a white cross on a red background. They took this to represent the marriage of Filippo instead to Maria of Savoy in 1428. I think this is where the date "1428" comes from.

He also believed the pack was that painted by Marziano da Tortona, described by Pier Candido Decembrio. This opinion too was picked up by a few later authors.

I've never heard that Luchino Visconti sold, or even possessed the cards. Is there a source?

(Note - I corrected my earlier mistake about the marriages and dates)

... hm ... Beatrice de Tenda and Filippo Maria married at the death bed of Ficino Cane or similar in about 1412. The 1428 second marriage ... actually December 1427, but possibly it was only the date of a contract ... belongs to a daughter of the duke of Savoy, who later got some fame as last anti-pope Felix.

http://genealogy.euweb.cz/italy/visconti2.html

D5. [2m.] Filippo Maria I, Conte di Pavia (1402-12), Duca di Milano (1412-47), *Milano 23.9.1392, +there 13.8.1447; 1m: 1412 Beatrice Balbo Lascaris Contessa di Biandrate, dau.of Pietro Conte di Ventimiglia, Signore di Tenda by Margherita del Carretto dei Marchesi di Finale (*Tenda 1372 +beheaded Binasco 13.9.1418), widow of Facino Cane Conte di Biandrate; 2m: 2.12.1427 Maria di Savoia (*I.1411 +22.2.1469)

* E1. [natural by Agnese del Maino (+after 1447)] Bianca Maria, *Milano 31.3.1425, +Cremona X.1468; m.25.10.1441 Francesco I Sforza Duca di Milano (*23.7.1401 +6.3.1468)

Lorredan gave some information recently ...

Re: A connection to Pisanello Artist?

Postby Lorredan on 07 Sep 2010, 05:42
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (2 November 1906 - 17 March 1976) was an Italian theater, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. It appears his brother was the Carlo of the Exposition.

Luchino became friends with Coco Chanel and was her wardrobe adviser for a time, he was also involved with the purchase of fabrics for the La Scala in Milan. To fund his film making endeavors he sold family jewelery in 1940, but earlier had attempted to sell a manuscript that was purported to be one previously unknown by Guiseppe Verdi. Some sales had been attempted of manuscripts again purported to belong to Petrarch, but were once again denied by Museums as they had 100 years earlier, as not genuine.

It would seem to me, that it would have been a coup to have some miniatures by Pisanello, rather than some unknown (in general) Bonifacio Bembo. Indeed these cards were in a private collection- so the only place they might have been seen, was if they were exhibited by the Visconti family- who were known as Visconti di Modrone by this time. The Mary Jones who saw the the cards as she obviously copied them, would not have got her information from a museum, but from the exposition. So perhaps the cards were for sale in 1935 as indeed they were sold in 1947, just before Luchino made/ wrote and directed La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles), launched in 1948. He continued to sell artifacts of the Visconti to fund his films.

viewtopic.php?f=11&p=8670

(note: sorry, cross posting about the dates)

I notice that there is a parallel discussion on ATF, started Sept. 13 by Rosanne.She did some research not duplicated here.

Earlier, I introduced the issue of Pisanello's authorship of the CY on Oct. 8, 2009, at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=4604&hilit=Pisanello#p4604. In that post I just introduced the topic, but I think I got a little further, at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=7136&hilit=Pisanello#p7136
and viewtopic.php?f=11&t=365&p=7160&hilit=Pisanello#p7160. I won't attempt to repeat my discussion there, but I will attempt a short summary.

There are two reasons for associating the CY with Pisanello. One is that he drew clothing that was uniquely similar in style to that of the CY. Another is the style of his medallions, which is comparable to that of the CY Coins.

In saying "uniquely similar," I mean to differentiate his drawings of clothing from the in some respects similar clothing in the earliest Zavaratti frescoes at Monza. Pisanello's is much more bizarre than the clothing there. On the other hand, it was so bizarre that other artists copied it, including Marco Zoppo in 1460s Bologna or Venice. Yet the clothing style pretty clearly is that of the early 1430s, if not earlier, as can be seen by comparing the earliest Zavaratti frescoes. early 1430s, to those of the mid-1440s.

One implication is that the clothing worn in the cards is of that period, the early 1430s or before, and that whoever did the cards either did them then, or was copying earlier designs done then, or was intentionally trying to make the cards look archaic. That one of the latter two possibilities is probably the truth is suggested by the illustrations to the Arthurian tales done in the mid-1440s, which are in the same style, by then clearly archaic.

The conclusion is not that Pisanello did the cards, but that either he, or someone familiar with his work, or someone who copied the style of someone familiar with his work, did so. The Bembo workshop was adept at copying others' styles, even of an earlier period (see "Bonifacio Bembo" entry, by Evelyn Welch, to the 1996 Dictionary of Art). But it is not hard to see how someone might think that Pisanello did the work.

The other Pisanellan influence in the cards is in the Coins. See Their "rearing horse" design is not a copy of Filippo's "rearing horse" ducats of 1435. It is much more naturalistic, similar to the "rearing horse" ducats that Francesco Sforza produced in 1450. Pisanello was known for his naturalistic rendering of animals. In 1440 he visited Milan to od medals of various people, including Francesco Sforza and Filippo Visconti. He did naturalistic medal obverses in Ferrara, mid-1440s. The CY coins are not replicas of any of these, but they are to his standard, and he could have drawn models of the designs of the coins during his visit. Or else someone who had seen his renderings of animals on medals could have done something in the same style.

Now I will add something I didn't say before, because I was no longer concerned with the 1935 data. Looking at the scans that "Roz Crowley" put on her website (http://rozcawley.typepad.com/autumn_cot ... ist/books/), it is not clear to me that anyone in 1935 was making the claim that Pisanello did the CY. Since the copies of the cards are doodles that Mary Jones did in a book she owned about Pisanello, it might well have been that she happened to notice the similarity, rather than the exhibitor. Moreover, I do not see in her doodles and scribblings any statement that Pisanello did the cards, just the implication that there were similarities to the exhibit that she went to--true enough. She does write, in her handwriting, that the cards were done in 1428; that information probably comes from the exhibitor. But unless I am missing something, the suggestion that Pisanello did the cards is one made by "Roz Crowley," a blogger of our own day.

The second scan Crowley posts, the one of a king or other noble holding a cup, continues to puzzle me. It doesn't look like the CY at all, but more like the von Bartsch King of Cups, which I thought was much later than Pisanello (see my earlier posts for detailed discussion with illustrations). It strikes me that we are missing some early decks, from which the von Bartsch derives. The relationship of Pisanello to the Brera-Brambrilla, and the question of its dating, is also puzzling. Tolfo says that the clothing seems older than that of the Cary-Yale. I am inclined to agree, in that it seems closer to Pisanello's style than the CY does.

There are several other issues raised by this examination of Pisanello, having to do with the dating of the CY. I discuss these at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... stcount=13, after the first few paragraphs.

mikeh wrote: The conclusion is not that Pisanello did the cards, but that either he, or someone familiar with his work, or someone who copied the style of someone familiar with his work, did so.

That I agree with.