Scrambling for scudi: notes on painters' earnings in early Baroque Rome
Art Bulletin, The, June, 2003 by Richard E. Spear
Continued from page 4.
What determined the price of a painting? (89) On what basis did the experts evaluate Rubens's work for the Chiesa Nuova or did Reni decide that Domenichino's altarpiece was worth 1,200 scudi? Mancini is explicit on the appropriate criteria, although he emphasizes that a painting cannot have a definite value because, for the same object, someone who is rich would pay more than a collector of modest means, just as someone who is in need would sell at a lower price. The latter indeed happened regarding Elsheimer's masterpiece, his house altar with stories of the True Gross. In 1612, two years after Elsheimer died, Agostino Tassi advised the grand duke of Tuscany to buy the work, which he had seen in the home of a Spaniard in Rome. Although the painter Ludovico Cigoli thought it was not good enough for the grand duke's collection, negotiations continued. Seven years later the grand duke was informed that the Spaniard was in financial trouble and now willing to accept less than the 3,000 scudi he had hoped to get. By the end of the year the deal was closed, for an unknown but presumably lowered price. (90)
Mancini writes that a painting's value or price, which he says the buyer rather than the artist really determines, is based on the talent and fame of the artist as well as the relative excellence of the particular work; on the artist's investment of time in learning his trade and in making the object under consideration (hence, its size and the number of figures counted); and on its materials. For earlier pictures, their age, rarity, condition, and a dealer's expenses contributed to their evaluation. (91) While all of this sounds very modern, Mancini curiously omitted a conspicuous factor, subject matter, whose significance undoubtedly increased on the secondary market after an artist's reputation and demand for his work had been shaped more nicely. Mancini also stressed that the quality of the patron is significant, as many artists discovered, for better or worse.
Worse for Annibale Carracci, whose meager payment by the notoriously stingy Odoardo Farnese for his years of labor in the Farnese Gallery was such a disappointment that it caused his physical breakdown. But better for Guido Reni, who cleverly manipulated his market by controlling supply and demand. According to his view, patrons could decide how much they wanted to spend by choosing from among painters of quite inferior quality ("pittori piu bassi"), who deserved no more than about 2 or 3 scudi per life-size figure; an ordinary artist ("pittore ordinario"), who commanded about 15 scudi a figure; and the special ("straordinario") painter, like himself, who was rewarded according to the excellence of the finished work. (92)
Reni knew how to profit by not setting prices on his paintings and relying instead on the magnificence of his wealthy patrons, who, after seeing the works completed, would pay him more than he would have asked for. (93) Guercino, on the other hand, typically prepriced his pictures on the basis of how many figures they contained--100 scudi per full-length figure, 50 per half-length, and 25 for heads. In a revealing letter to Don Antonio Ruffo, Guercino cautioned his patron, who did not want to pay the full price for an entire figure, that for his 80 scudi, "you'll get a bit more than a half figure." (94)
Occasionally painters turned some of their work over to dealers, whose markups could be substantial. After settling in Bologna, Reni once stooped to working for what Carlo Cesare Malvasia calls a "shrewd old man" on an hourly basis: 10 scudi an hour, four hours a day, during which time he would paint two pictures that would be resold for 100 scudi apiece, netting the dealer 80 scudi each. (95) In Rome, Mancini learned that Gerrit van Honthorst "is well paid, but making room for those who buy to resell and do well with their own business." (96) Another foreigner, Jusepe de Ribera, was in Rome about the same time. Mancini writes of him that, "having come to Rome, he worked for a daily wage for those who have workshops and sell paintings through the labors of similar young men." But his loose way of living ran up such big debts that Ribera had to get out of town. "In truth," Mancini continues, "one could say he acted slightly in bad faith, because when he wanted to work he earned five or six scudi a day, so that if his expenses had been normal, he could quickly and easily have paid everyone." (97)
At times an artist might adjust his expectations because of rivalry. Malvasia relates that some of Annibale's first commissions had been offered to Ludovico, but that Ludovico found their fees unworthy. He passed the work on to his younger cousin, "not so much to give encouragement and the small financial benefit... but to see to it that these commissions would be a product issuing from their own workshop, so that they would not fall, as did many others, to their rival Procaccini, and to Fontana, Calvaert, and Passerotti. (98)
Around 1595, the middleman who was negotiating the price of Ludovico's huge Transfiguration complained that the Carracci, who usually had been charging only 60 or 70 scudi for their pictures, had raised their prices to bolster their reputation and now asked for 200 scudi. Therefore, he turned to their competitor Prospero Fontana, who said that, while his usual fee was only half as much, he would take the job at any price. Fontana's competitive discount notwithstanding, the patron finally gave in to the Carracci. (99)
One more example concerns Ludovico, who in 1600 demanded 200 scudi for his painting the Birth of the Baptist. The patron hesitated, whereupon Ludovico's former student Guido Reni offered to paint the altarpiece for half that price. Not to be outdone, Ludovico countered that he would match Reni's figure and throw in a small picture for the patron's sister, who was responsible for making the decision. Ludovico got the job. (100)
Reni was unusually sensitive and competitive about issues of money. "Why is there this screaming all of the time about how long I take and how high my prices are?" Malvasia reports him demanding. "Can one so quickly and easily get a half-figure from Caravaggio? One pays less for it than one of mine, when in effect he wants twice as much? I did the Crucifixion of St. Peter at the Tre Fontane for 70 miserable scudi but didn't Cardinal Scipione give [Caravaggio] 150?" (101)
Ludovico prefigured Reni in knowing how to maximize and raise prices. He "taught all those who came after him to get well paid" (102)--but evidently not his cousin Annibaie. Malvasia felt that the 125 scudi Annibale got for his Madonna of Saint Luke of 1592 was inadequate, though a better reward than the load of grain and crate of grapes he received the next year for his Resurrection. (103) Malvasia understood that Annibale's brother Agostino, like Ludovico, was scudi-savvy, and concluded that had Agostino been in Rome to help, annibale would have been better paid by Odoardo Farnese, for Agostino "knew how to deal with courtiers and how to stand his ground with princes." (104)
As a young man Francesco Albani was financially independent and could risk losing the duke of Mantua's patronage by asking for 100 scudi a month, plus expenses and fees for his assistants, on top of payment for individual works. (105) Remarking on Albani's privileged birth, Mancini reported that the painter did not have to rely on daily wages for a living and therefore he produced less, although he felt that what Albani completed was "of great perfection." He then posed the question: Is it better for an artist to be "comfortable and rich or poor and needy [che sia commodo et ricco o ver povero et bisognioso] for his glory and for him to be of use to the world"? He decided that being comfortable and rich was preferable because quality, which he linked to good pay and adequate time, is more important than quantity, a consequence of need. (106)
Elsheimer undoubtedly agreed. In his drawing The Artist in Despair (Fig. 1), he depicted a putto (at right) with one arm raised and winged, the other arm weighed down by a stone and disabled. The image was taken from Andrea Alciati's emblem book (Fig. 2), where it carries the motto "Poverty hinders the greatest talents from advancing," glossed in its accompanying legend: "With my talent I could be soaring among the highest peaks, if envious poverty did not pull me down." (107) Regardless of which edition of Alciati Elsheimer consulted, (108) the grim message is clear: poverty clips the wings of artistic creativity.
True or not, from a painter's perspective it is a smart marketing claim, as Artemisia Gentileschi and probably every artist knew. In 1649 she bluntly wrote to her most important patron, Don Antonio Ruffo, "I can tell you for certain that the higher the price, the harder will I strive to make a painting that will please Your Most Illustrious Lordship." (109)
Notes
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