Tátrai Vilmos szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 95. (Budapest, 2001)
FRANKLIN, DAVID: Giorgio Vasari's Marriage Feast at Cana in Budapest
GIORGIO VASARI' S MARRIAGE FEAST AT CAN A IN BUDAPEST The Marriage Feast at Cana by Vasari in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (fig. 55) is not signed or documented, but the attribution of the painting has never been openly doubted. With the exception of issues relating to its disputed recent provenance now, thankfully, resolved, the painting has not received much scholarly attention. 1 It was first recorded after its acquisition by the Esterházy family in Vienna sometime in the first half of the nineteenth century, but has no earlier secure provenance. Initially mentioned in the Budapest Museum in 1871, the object entered the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1963 following its acquisition from a state store two years earlier, but was reclaimed by the Budapest Museum already in 1965 (they had made public their loss of the picture as early as 1948). It was returned to Budapest in 1999, in part with the assistance of the National Gallery of Canada, which prompted the research presented here. The subject of the painting is the Marriage at Cana, related only in the Gospel of John, 2, 1-11. It describes how Christ and his disciples at a wedding celebration in Cana in Galilee when asking for wine were told by the Virgin Mary, who was also present, that none was left. Christ's unexpected reply to his mother ("Woman, what have I to do with thee") has been interpreted as a foreshadowing of his Passion, while his presence at the wedding has been taken as his sanctification of the Marriage sacrament. Christ then ordered six vessels of water to be brought and presented to the presiding steward at the wedding, who in tasting the liquid since turned into wine congratulated the bridegroom on its excellence for, contrary to convention, keeping the best quality drink until the celebration's end. It immediately transpired to the disciples what had occurred and this miraculous incident represented a turning point in their relationship to Christ. In Vasari's panel, the steward is presumably the man at the front right holding the glass and the bride is perhaps the figure opposite him to the left, while the vessels critical for the narrative are placed in the central foreground. A deferential Virgin Mary appears at Christ's right in a slightly lower position with his hand placed over hers - a gesture that may have some relation to the strong words spoken to her, as I should especially like to thank Florian Harb, Richard Reed and Louis Waldman for their assistance in the preparation of this article. I am also grateful to the director of the National Gallery of Canada, Pierre Théberge, for his encouragement. 1 For the provenance see in particular Boucher, M., Un sujet controversé: le Musée fait le point, in Collage, Montréal: Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal 1998, p. 28; and Lufkin, M., Rejected: co-ownership for alleged war loot, The Art Newspaper No. 82 (June, 1998).
