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Lot Essay
Scipione Compagni's dramatic painting chronicles the abduction of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Greece, by Paris and his Trojan army. At first glance, the impression is one of chaos, with a tangle of flailing limbs and weapons set against a fortified cityscape background. Closer inspection reveals that the central figure in the plumed helmet is Paris who, together with one of his soldiers, carries the struggling Helen into a boat on the quay. Her desperate resistance against her captors is visually highlighted by the tonality, with the palest and brightest tones reserved for Helen's figure and yellow tunic.
The present painting was formerly attributted to Nicolas Poussin, likely based on several figures with similar poses; see, for example, the rear-facing figure with a bare foot in Poussin's The Seven Sacraments (Duke of Sutherland Collection, on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh) or The Adoration of the Shepherds (Private Collection, Switzerland) both of which relate to a comparable figure at lower left in the present work. However, we are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa, who has re-evaluated the Abduction of Helen and has suggested an attribution to Scipione Compagni, who was born in Naples and trained for a time in Rome.
This battle scene, though complex in structure, remains balanced through the use of parallel visual devices: at the left of the canvas, the oars clutched by the Greek soldiers in the boat echo the raised spears of the Trojans advancing from the right, and the action is effectively framed between the two. The narrative is set against a low horizon in a format characteristic of Northern Italianate landscape painters like Goffredo Wals. The focus of the image is, however, confined strictly to the foreground, where the protagonists are pressed close to the picture plane. There, the various figures are intertwined in twisted, animated groups reminiscent of the Roman late Mannerist tradition of Cavaliere d'Arpino and Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, il Morazzone. The sculptural, frieze-like qualities of the painting also call to mind the work of Aniello Falcone, a contemporary Neapolitan artist who specialized in similar compositions, and secure its place within a grander tradition of battle scenes.
There is certainly an awareness, while not a direct quotation, of such well-known prototypes as Michelangelo's Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs (Casa Buonarroti, Florence), with its crush of overlapping figures and frantic, confused forces. More specifically, we can observe a reference to his lost cartoon for the Battle of Cascina: Compagni uses a device similar to Michelangelo's in the inclusion of a figure communicating directly with the viewer. With his outspread hands, open mouth and direct, wide-eyed stare, Compagni's wounded warrior in the center foreground corresponds closely to the central figure of a bearded man in Michelangelo's cartoon. Also comparable in atmosphere, though on a much larger scale, are Giulio Romano's frescoes for the Sala di Costantino, which Compagni is bound to have heard of or even seen during his stay in Rome. Like Compagni's Abduction of Helen, the Battle of Constantine sets a violent clash between opposing forces against an expansive panoramic background. And finally, Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving after Raphael's Massacre of the Innocents established a model for successive generations working in the subgenre of battle/abduction scenes.
The present painting was formerly attributted to Nicolas Poussin, likely based on several figures with similar poses; see, for example, the rear-facing figure with a bare foot in Poussin's The Seven Sacraments (Duke of Sutherland Collection, on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh) or The Adoration of the Shepherds (Private Collection, Switzerland) both of which relate to a comparable figure at lower left in the present work. However, we are grateful to Professor Nicola Spinosa, who has re-evaluated the Abduction of Helen and has suggested an attribution to Scipione Compagni, who was born in Naples and trained for a time in Rome.
This battle scene, though complex in structure, remains balanced through the use of parallel visual devices: at the left of the canvas, the oars clutched by the Greek soldiers in the boat echo the raised spears of the Trojans advancing from the right, and the action is effectively framed between the two. The narrative is set against a low horizon in a format characteristic of Northern Italianate landscape painters like Goffredo Wals. The focus of the image is, however, confined strictly to the foreground, where the protagonists are pressed close to the picture plane. There, the various figures are intertwined in twisted, animated groups reminiscent of the Roman late Mannerist tradition of Cavaliere d'Arpino and Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, il Morazzone. The sculptural, frieze-like qualities of the painting also call to mind the work of Aniello Falcone, a contemporary Neapolitan artist who specialized in similar compositions, and secure its place within a grander tradition of battle scenes.
There is certainly an awareness, while not a direct quotation, of such well-known prototypes as Michelangelo's Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs (Casa Buonarroti, Florence), with its crush of overlapping figures and frantic, confused forces. More specifically, we can observe a reference to his lost cartoon for the Battle of Cascina: Compagni uses a device similar to Michelangelo's in the inclusion of a figure communicating directly with the viewer. With his outspread hands, open mouth and direct, wide-eyed stare, Compagni's wounded warrior in the center foreground corresponds closely to the central figure of a bearded man in Michelangelo's cartoon. Also comparable in atmosphere, though on a much larger scale, are Giulio Romano's frescoes for the Sala di Costantino, which Compagni is bound to have heard of or even seen during his stay in Rome. Like Compagni's Abduction of Helen, the Battle of Constantine sets a violent clash between opposing forces against an expansive panoramic background. And finally, Marcantonio Raimondi's engraving after Raphael's Massacre of the Innocents established a model for successive generations working in the subgenre of battle/abduction scenes.