Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 98. (Budapest, 2003)
TÁTRAI, JÚLIA: 'Jacob de Backer invenit' - The Allegory of Smell. A New Aquisition of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
fountain in front of the building as well as the tall trees behind the garden wall does not appear in the painting. In other parts of the composition - for example, the trees in the centre, the building in the background, and the flower basket in the hand of the allegorical female figure - the painting and the drawing employ different solutions. Similar variations appear between the painting and the etching, and the drawing and the etching. It is difficult to judge whether the etchings were indeed based on the Backer drawings or one of the painted series. Nevertheless, it is almost certain that if the engraver did use paintings as his prototypes, the source was not the Budapest series, as Czobor claimed. The other paintings in the Budapest series also differ significantly from the prints in terms of composition. For example, in the Sense of Touch, the landscape detail is absent in the painted version. Moreover, the painted version also shows the companion monkey on all fours, while the print shows him crouched clutching an apple. The two versions of Sense of Sight provide yet another example: in the engraved version a group of trees with sparse foliage extends up the hillside; this detail is absent from the painting. A comparison of the three painted versions of the Sense of Touch shed light not only on compositional differences but also on disparities in the artistic quality of execution: the panel in the Zanchi collection exhibits a more sophisticated manner of painting, handling of colour, and elaboration of details than the other two paintings. 28 In Bodart's expert opinion, he considers the Zanchi picture to be a work by Backer, while Czobor makes the same claim for the three paintings she knew of from the Budapest series. Several times during the course of research the attribution of the Budapest paintings has been questioned. Foucart believes the Budapest pictures are copies of an original series that served as a model for the etchings too. The Budapest pictures, in his opinion, display unsophisticated brush work and 'address the viewer with merely the playful forms of mannerism'. 29 Leuschner places the Sense of Sight panel in the same category as a group of small-scale female nudes produced in bulk by Backer's circle for private commissions. In quality, these works fall short of those ascribed to the Antwerp master himself (such as Venus awarding Pahs, Staatliche Museen, Meiningen). 30 Although the Budapest panels are probably not the work of Backer himself, they are still very important in understanding the Antwerp painter's methods of composition and the iconography of his works. Numerous pictures belonging to the De Backer group were similarly constructed: usually nude, large-scale figures in the foreground, with biblical or mythological scenes containing one or two much smaller figures in the 28 1 had to rely on only a photograph to determine its quality. 29 Foucart, J., Les Sept Peches Capitaux de l'Anversois Jacques de Backer, in Hommage à Michel Lactone. Etudes sur la peinture du Moyen age et de la Renaissance, Milano 1994, p. 454. 30 Leuschner, E., Antwerpener Akte. Zum Kontext eines Bildes von Jacob de Backer (Südthüringer Forschungen 29. Beiträge zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte), Meiningen, Staatliche Museen 1995, p. 10; id., Ein unbekanntes Hauptwerk von Jacob de Backer in Meiningen, Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Künsten Antwerpen (1994) 53-55 calls attention to the very similar positioning of the female figure in the Meyssen's etching Sense of Sight and Venus in the painting in Meiningen. These figures recall the reclining Venuses of Venetian painting. Cf. Urbach, loc.cit. (n. 6) p. 9, and Sluiter, E.J., Venus, Visus en Pictura, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 42-43 (1991-92) 341.
