The Artist: Michele Desubleo (1602–1676) was born in Maubeuge in what was then the Spanish Netherlands and is today northern France. He seems to have trained with the Flemish painter Abraham Janssen van Nuyssen (ca. 1575–1632), who was also the teacher of Desubleo’s elder half-brother, Nicolas Régnier (1591–1667). Régnier is thought to have arrived in Rome by 1620 and it was presumably then or shortly thereafter that Desubleo joined him in the rich artistic culture in the wake of Caravaggio (1571–1610) exemplified by several artists in Régnier’s circle, notably Bartolomeo Manfredi (1582–1622). By the early 1630s, Desubleo had settled in Bologna, where he entered the workshop of Guido Reni (1575–1642) and quickly established himself among the “first painters of Bologna,” in the estimation of the biographer Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616–1693). The distinctive classical air and colorful palette of Desubleo’s mature work are heavily indebted to Bolognese painting and to Guido Reni in particular. By 1654, Desubleo was working in the Veneto; from 1665 until his death in 1676 he was based in Parma.[1]
The Painting: Executed in his final decade
Allegory of Sacred and Profane Love is recognized as one of Desubleo’s supreme achievements, a summation of his knowledge of the artistic traditions of Rome, Bologna and Parma.[2] An adolescent allegorical figure representing Virtuous Love reclines in a landscape, bisecting the canvas diagonally between a putto representing Profane Love (who has been defeated, blindfolded, and bound to a tree) and an extensive still life (comprised of musical instruments, attributes of arts and armor, and vanitas symbols). A large lute, known as a theorbo, extends across nearly the full width of the composition, linking left and right and highlighting Profane Love’s fallen quiver. The principal figure not only wears a laurel crown in recognition of his triumph, but also holds out a second crown as if to bestow recognition of virtue upon his viewer.
In taking up this subject Desubleo responded most directly to his teacher Guido Reni’s interpretation (see fig. 1 above), which would have been known to him as part of the Zambeccari collection in Bologna. The figure of Profane Love has been repeated almost verbatim, albeit in mirrored orientation; the figure of Sacred Love has sometimes been compared with Guido’s
Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness (ca. 1636; The Dulwich Picture Gallery), though this connection is more that of a generalized, adolescent type. Desubleo’s use of the figure in order to diagonally bisect a horizontal composition comes closer to examples in his own work from his decade in Parma, notably his
David and Goliath (mid-1670s; private collection). The generalized facial features employed by Desubleo, including the thin, straight nose and almond-shaped eyes, take their cue from classical sculpture. Very similar physiognomies are found in his
Rebecca and Eliza at the Well (1650s; Palazzo Colonna, Rome) and his half-length
David with the Head of Goliath (1640s; Sainta Maria di Galliera, Bologna).[3] While Desubleo’s artistic models were certainly Italian, it is worth noting that from his earliest training with Janssen in Flanders he would have begun to absorb such dramatic use of the male nude, notably in works such as Janssen’s Caravaggesque
The Dead Christ in the Tomb with Two Angels (
1971.101) in The Met’s collection.
Desubleo took such care with the still-life elements that they vie for equal, if not greater, attention than do the human figures. The calculated geometry, bravura foreshortening, and complexity of a pile of string instrument in particular suggest a link to the enigmatic painter Evaristo Baschenis (1617–1677; fig. 2). Working only around one hundred miles from Parma, in Bergamo, Baschenis’s idiosyncratic still lifes were surely known to Desubleo and seem to have inspired him here; however, the proposition that the two artists actually collaborated on this canvas seems to be unsubstantiated both in terms of painterly technique and the consistent facture evident across the painting’s surface.[4] In large works such as this, Desubleo frequently employed a relatively hard external outline, almost cartoonlike in approach, so as to be legible from a distance. Perhaps this led naturally to a kind of over-articulation and interest in geometries. The compositional game of arranging the hollow wooden forms of string instruments is found in works by other artists of the period, albeit in more subtle ways, as in The Met’s
Allegory of Music (
50.189) by Laurent de La Hyre.
In 1690, Desubleo’s
Allegory of Sacred and Profane Love was paired with his now lost
Cain and Abel in the collection of Gian Simone Boscoli, a patrician figure in Parma who authored books on military architecture and mathematics. Boscoli’s scholarly interests may also explain the pronounced interest in geometry that sets this painting apart within Desubleo’s oeuvre. While in the Boscoli collection, Desubleo’s
Allegory of Sacred and Profane Love and
Cain and Abel had white frames, as recorded in the inventory description: “Due quadri bislonghi della medesima grandezza, con cornice bianca, d’altezza br. 2 10., lung. sa br. 3. 8. – In uno sopra, un’Amore virtuoso che ha sotto i piedi l’Amore vitioso circondato da istromenti virtuosi, musicali, guerieri, ed altri, fatto di mano propria, di Michele Desobleo [sic] fiammingo, stimato doppie quindici. / Nel’altro del med.mo Fiammengo, vi è Caino che uccide Abele, stimato doppie quindici.”[5] A reminder of the intersection of the arts and learning that encompassed painting, mathematics, music, and literature in Baroque Europe as found in Desubleo’s canvas, in 1686 Benedetto Bacchini described Boscoli’s palazzo as “a learned and rich museum.”[6]
David Pullins 2021
[1] On Desubleo’s life and work, see Cottino 2001.
[2] “capolavoro: non solo di Desubleo, ma di tutto il Seicento classicita italiano.” Cottino 2001, p. 125.
[3] Cottino 2001, nos. 17, 37.
[4] Cirillo and Godi 1995, pp. 25–28. Cottino and Francesca Baldassari note how this work anticipates an artist of the next generation, Cristoforo Munari (1667–1720). See Baldassari 1998, p. 110 and Cottino 2001, p. 125.
[5] Boscoli also owned a pair of half-length saints by Desubleo. See Boscoli 1690, pp. 378, 400. For a history of the Boscoli family, see Eugenio Gamurrini,
Istoria Genealogica delle Famiglie Nobili Toscane, et Umbre, Florence, 1679, vol. 4, pp. 108–13 and
Memorie degli scrittori e letterati parmigiana, Parma, 1797, vol. 5, pp. 274–76.
[6] “un dotto e ricco Museo.” Bacchini Benedetto,
Giornale de’ Letterati dell’Anno 1686, Parma, 1686, p. 13.
