The painting, executed upon a trapezoidal board, was originally the lid of a harpsichord. The lower corners were a relatively modern addition that was intended to regulate the overall shape. The recent pictorial “neutral” restoration - in tone with the background - has enabled the spectator to see more clearly the original perimeter of the wooden board.
The back part of the support, or what can actually be seen in those areas saved from the parquetry that had been applied when the painting was transformed into “a picture for a room”, was decorated with a pattern that attempted to imitate wooden veining so as to suggest a finish that would be suitable for a board utilised as the cover for a musical instrument.
Knowing the original function of the painting has been highly significant. The choice of wood – poplar or lime wood - is immediately very evident since these were woods that were noted for their excellent harmonious features and therefore exceedingly suitable for the construction of musical instruments, in particular stringed instruments with a keyboard . Since we know the original use of this wooden board we should not be surprised by the lack of attention that had been paid to the preparation and finish of the surface as would have been usual in a painting intended as part of a picture gallery in a large room. The swift and thin spread of colour interferes to a certain extent with the wooden veining without forgetting that the corrugated effect of the surface (especially in the figure of Apollo) is accentuated by the natural movements of the wood. The speed and the experimental character of the painting are emphasised by numerous pentimenti – second thoughts – that are visible to the naked eye in many of the work’s features.
Some stucco work and pictorial touches seen under a black light concern the joint lines of the rectangular portion of the board at the top left that was originally a mobile flap intended to protect the keyboard. The now concealed insertion is made up of two wooden segments, one shorter (8.5 x 4.5 cm) and one more extended (8.5 x 87.5 cm), both made with the rest of the table since the paint is coherent with the surrounding areas.
The choice of the subject is coherent with a work made to accompany a musical instrument. In two episodes played out in a sequence of ideal continuity, we may follow the visual translation of two famed mythological stories where, in a sort of iconographical contamination, the musical contests between Apollo and the two satyrs, Marsyas and Pan, are illustrated. These contests were described in many ancient literary sources (the most fortunate of these tales is the highly and almost contextual one – in this particular case - of the two stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: VI, 703-708; XI, 146-193). These episodes, assembled here in order to ideally re-evoke the “labours” of Apollo and his incomparable musical talent, were especially loved by painters in the Baroque age since they offered so many opportunities to translate onto the surface of the picture the most varied expressions and behaviour.
To the right at the back, in a sequence of small figures, there is the musical challenge between Apollo and Pan (recognisable by his goats’ feet, an attribute that distinguishes him from Marsyas) positioned symmetrically to the sides of King Midas who, according to the literary tale, was given the ears of an ass after he had failed to agree with the favourable verdict. In the centre of the painting, in a sequence of larger figures, the punishment of Marsyas is represented - a punishment that is decreed by Apollo’s victory and sanctioned by the Muses. Here, in the principal scene, the choice of the point of view is extremely dynamic and the composition is wholly original with regard to the techniques adopted by numerous painters of the Seventeenth century who were engaged in interpreting this popular iconographical subject (although the setting of the story within a close-up frame on one single board is not unusual). Marsyas faces Apollo and, although his hands are tied behind his back and his body has been partially flayed, he is not yet entirely subjugated as he would mostly appear in those other paintings that told the same story in which the satyr is also tied to a tree or the trunk of a tree and thus rendered harmless. The prominent figures are almost projected towards the spectator and they move in a play of contrasting studies upon a real stage setting supported merely by the presence of the musical instruments of the contest, placed symbolically on the ground as indicators of the contenders. We are witness to an agility test that portrays a ballet scene or, even, a moment of physical exercise.
The painting is rare testimony to the artistic production of unreligious works in the Milan of the Borromeo archbishops. It combines the uniqueness of the subject – at least in that particular city noted above all for its religious production “in a certain manner unequalled in Europe” - with the special nature of the original function.
With just a little bit of imagination, it is not very difficult to attribute to this painting the explosive definitions that Longhi launched at the characterisation of the stylistic and cultural climate of painting in Lombardy in the early part of the Seventeenth century, a period in which painters dear to him (Morazzone and Cerano, but also Giulio Cesare Procaccini), were “bearers of the most spiritual Mannerism that Italy had ever enjoyed until that time” and were defined as “swordsmen of the sacristy” . Indeed, one’s mind, at this point, rushes to Jacob’s Struggle with the Angel by
Morazzone, in the collections of the Archbishopric of Milan, now at the Diocesan Museum in the same city. Longhi, in that very same study, went on to mention the type and the character of the figures, still highly recognisable on account of the “elegant dimples” (with a most probable reference to Procaccini or “sweeter works” by Cerano and by Morazzone). He may even have been making a reference to an intended play of contrasts, on account of the “cruel wounds” (here Longhi was most certainly referring to the most dramatic scenes in Morazzone’s or Cerano’s works). Lastly, Longhi mentioned “sentiment and rancour” as typical characters of Lombard painting of that age.
This is all that this painting enables us to see. It is perfectly aligned with that everlasting Lombard Mannerism in its counterpoint between the sweet and graceful bright figure of the young Apollo (“Olympian swordsman”, to paraphrase Longhi) and the wild and evil (Longhi would say “rancorous”) Marsyas, distinguished by his dark and taut skin, like those devils that punctuate Morazzone’s Last Judgement in the Chapel of the Buona Morte in Novara. A further reference might also be made to the ungodly and reprehensible butcher (also by Morazzone) who acts as the pivot of the entire composition of the Martyrdom of Saint Rufina and Saint Seconda (a painting by the three artists Cerano, Procaccini and Morazzone) at Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
Even though it is not easy to fully appreciate the artist’s non-religious production, if we exclude his more celebrated portraits, this painting is spectacular proof of the early artistic production of Daniele Crespi.
The energetic modelling of the figures in this Apollo and Marsyas are those typical of Crespi’s early work, since the time when he worked with Moncalvo in the Church of San Vittore al Corpo in Milan (1619 circa). This was a period of his production that the volume by Francesco Frangi has studied in some considerable depth. It was a moment in which the artist engaged in mutual glances at the work of the so-called “Maestro of San Sebastiano Monti”, his alter ego in the years from 1618 to 1620 and informal experimenter of sketches and of figures in athletic spirals. Daniele Crespi yearned then for a “restless and hyper-sensitive artistic vein” and “did not hesitate to welcome into his work the testy expressivity of painters from the previous generation” . Crespi undertook this particular direction in order to achieve a measured and tranquil style in the name of accuracy in design and artistic exchange with the great classic painters from Emilia. This was a turning point in the later years of his all too short working life that was prematurely interrupted by his death.
This painting was on the division line that ideally separated the two phases of the artist and is around the year 1620.
The perfection in terms of design and the plastic quality of the anatomies of the ures (well-defined in outline) as well as the types of faces and the shining consistence of the complexions are also to be found in other known works by the artist, even though the “rough” and essential nature of the painting, prepared without the attentions made for a “gallery” painting, would, to some extent, point away from the quest for any sophisticated painting techniques and rich colours (I am referring in particular to the figure of Apollo) which were normally found in works by the Lombard painter.
There are many potential comparisons to be made at this point and they are all with works by the artist that were painted around 1620. The type of face used for Apollo is almost superimposable with the face of the angels and the Virgin in the painting at the Princeton University Art Museum, whilst the small sketched figures in the background are similar to the soldiers in the distance in the Saint Sebastian at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Brest .
However, it is the Fall of Saint Paul, previously in the Suida Manning Collection and now at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin (Texas), the most important piece of the painter’s early artistic production, that has played a guiding role in confirmation of the work’s attribution. The movement of Apollo’s arm that is pulling Marsyas’ skin during the latter’s flaying is the same as the one of the young soldier who is holding the reins of the wild horse after the fall of Saul. Furthermore, the face of this very same soldier has, in the emphasis of his amazement at the miraculous conversion of the first king of Israel, spirited and loaded tones that are perfectly suited to those expressed by Marsyas on account of the torture he is going through.
The very close relationship with the painting at Austin, which Crespi had to work on immediately following - or practically at the same time as – the newly re-discovered Apollo and Marsyas, is further documented by the identical style of the light ochre drapes that are blowing in harmonious spirals around the legs of the figure of Apollo and, in the case of the American painting, they embellish with a sash the armour of the soldier in the background. Rendered more noticeable by similar bright crests, the fabrics are animated by vortexes in the folds that emphasise the excitement in the movements of the figures.
The freedom that Daniele Crespi enjoyed when he chose to interpret such an unusual subject in his artistic production without referring to past models is surprising. Yet, in Milan, in a collection that was almost a non-institutionalised artistic academy during Crespi’s years of professional training, there was one possible reference point. I am referring to the Contest between Apollo and Marsyas, at that time considered to be a work by Correggio and kept in the collection of Pirro I Visconti Borromeo (1560-1604), at the nymphaeum of Lainate (today at the Hermitage with an updated attribution to Bronzino, made by Hermann Voss at the beginning of the Twentieth century ). In this particular case, too, it was a painting that had started out as the lid of a musical instrument, most probably commissioned by Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, from the Florentine painter. Daniele Crespi must have looked at that illustrious precedent before his very eyes, and perhaps merely drew from it the inspiration for the elegant movement of the wrist of Apollo during the “vivisection” and the idea of integrating an episode of the story to the background. In the painting that had previously been understood to be by Correggio, the rarefied dispersion of the figures in the landscape was not, however, most of all suitable for a painter in the newly-arrived Baroque age, since it highlighted the scene in the foreground and emphasised the more macabre aspects.
At first sight, therefore, the painting would appear to be a tribute to the works of painters from his homeland (the so-called pestanti dear to Giovanni Testori), studied in his early years as a painter (those by Cerano, among the most important). However, if we look more closely at the result of such an artistic endeavour, we can see that Crespi, even in consideration of the fact that the subject would have enabled him to do so, was not able to compete in terms of cruelty and drama with his immediate predecessors, thus highlighting in this case, too, the classical composure and the moderate temperament that were innate qualities that belonged solely to him.

Alessandro Morandotti



After careful observation, the board - modified into a rectangular shape in order to support the painting of Apollo and Marsyas – turns out to be the lid of a harpsichord (a keyboard instrument with plucked cords of the clavicytherium family), sometimes known as a virginal or polygonal spinet.
There are traces of pictorial decoration on the side opposite the painting that demonstrate how this part was also intended to be equally visible. The surface was rubbed smooth and subsequently framed in conifer wood (fir or pine). Two triangular side parts were added to the lower part when the lid was modified. A rectangular portion in the upper part, originally separate, was used as a flap for the keyboard. Holes for the attachment of the two hinges – to the sides of the keyboard – are further proof of its original intended use.
The current width of this particular feature – too short to cover the entire length of a key – should not deceive since harpsichords of this type possessed a keyboard that partially protruded from the instrument as a whole and it is more than likely that the part jutting out of the flap was at some point removed.
The wooden board, made of poplar or lime wood, was trimmed on the right and on the left during its modification. Indeed, there is an obvious lack of a complete finish on the sides. The smearing of colour visible here is most certainly attributable to the later piece of intervention since it also covers the lower triangular additions. The original six-sided polygonal shape of the lid may be clearly seen here, with its jutting keyboard and symmetrical structure. The off-centre position of the keyboard is typical of musical motivations that will be explained at a later stage. The polygonal harpsichord with a symmetrical framework is a rare exception to this and few examples have survived to our times.
A further feature of the lid is its unusual width. The wooden board is approximately 70 cm – at least a third more than the lid of a normal harpsichord. The reason for this particular characteristic is due to the arrangement of the keys, present in very few instruments that have survived to this day. Normally, the keys are arranged alternately in two rows. In this particular case, on the other hand, they pluck the cords in one single row, all following the same verse and thus requiring a greater degree of room. I can mention three more significant examples of this same type. The so-called arcispineta by Giovanni Celestini from 1610 (inv. no. 1590), a harpsichord by Donatus Undeus Bergomensis from 1623 (inv. no. 2034) – both at the MIM in Brussels – and an instrument at Milan’s Museum of Musical Instruments, attributed by myself to the Celestini workshop (inv. no. 596). Fortuitously, this latter example also bears an “Apollo and Marsyas” inside the cover.
The position of the keyboard interrupts the symmetry of the wooden board and points to further important characteristics of the original instrument. The keyboard was, as a matter of fact, quite broad (so much so that a wider musical range was initially taken into consideration) and was arranged very much to the left side with respect to the centre of the lid. This latter feature was typical of those instruments that plucked the cords just over the bridge in order to achieve a more brilliant tone. This was a particular feature that the harpsichord had in common with the one by Celestini in Brussels and the one at the museum in Milan. Nevertheless, the uncommon symmetry of the structure and the considerable width of the lid place it closer to the Brussels harpsichord of 1623.
Since it has been ascertained that a harpsichord maker usually made instruments with different tones, the lid under examination here may be attributed to the traditions employed by Lombard instrument makers at the workshop of Donatus Undeus Bergomensis.

Augusto Bonza