(Florence 1500–1556 Paris)
The abduction of Helen of Troy,
oil on panel, oval, 41.5 x 58.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

Literature:
D. Cordellier (ed.), Luca Penni: un disciple de Raphaël à Fontainebleau, exhibition catalogue, Paris 2012, p. 49, fig. 42, p. 52, note 24 and p. 190, cat. 90 (as Luca Penni);
D. Cordellier, De Gênes à Paris: Luca Penni, dit le Romain, peintre, in: F. Elsig (ed.), Peindre en France à la Renaissance Fontainebleau et son rayonnement, Milan 2012, vol. II, pp. 37-47, fig. 19 (as Luca Penni)

This work depicts the abduction of Helen, wife of the king of Sparta, Menelaus, by the Trojans; this episode was the initial pretext leading to the outbreak of the long Trojan War. The painting presents a refined preparatory underdrawing and has been included by Cordellier in the small corpus of works by Luca Penni (see literature), one of the greatest exponents of the School of Fontainebleau.

The format of the panel, oval-shaped with a horizontal composition, is characteristic of the School of Fontainebleau and is also found in engravings after Luca Penni’s drawings, such as Justice and the Deadly Sins by Léon Davent (in H. Zerner, Ecole de Fontainebleau, Gravures, Paris 1969, cat. L.D. 85-92). Luca Penni’s works are characterised by a multitude of figures and their interweaving movements, shown in an epic setting, playing on the aesthetics of violence.

Three motifs, also apparent in the present painting, can be considered typical of Luca Penni’s work. The first element is the depiction of primordial and heroic hand-to-hand struggle carried out by nude men with shaved heads: elements that can be found in other depictions of the Trojan War, which Penni often represented. The second element is the inclusion of a warrior, seen in profile holding a weapon, on the right side of the painting. The same figure also appears in Penni’ s drawing Combat d’ hommes in the Louvre (see fig. 1). Finally, the third characteristic element is the depiction of details drawn from the nature, such as rocks or tree trunks, which are inserted into the compositional scheme to create a harmony between the action and movements of the characters and the surrounding environment (see D. Cordellier, De Gênes à Paris: Luca Penni, dit le Romain, peintre, in F. Elsig (ed.), Peindre en France à la Reinassance Fontainbleau et son rayonnement, Milan 2012, vol. II, p.44).

The original sources of this composition seem to be complex. The central narrative, with the figure of Helen being dragged by a Trojan soldier, may derive from a drawing by Raphael – this was cited as the model for two engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi and Marco Dente da Ravenna from around 1515–16 and both engravings resemble Penni’s central composition (see fig. 2). However, the authorship of Raphael’s drawing is now questioned, as it may be a work by the Gianfrancesco Penni - Luca’s elder brother.

Luca was born in Florence, but he trained in Rome (hence the moniker Romanus). He was the younger brother of Raphael’s leading assistant Giovanni Francesco Penni (1488/1496–1528) and must have been trained initially by his brother in the milieu of Raphael’s workshop. He collaborated with Perin del Vaga, his brother-in-law, in Lucca and Genoa before moving to Fontainebleau in France, around 1530. On his arrival at the court of François I, Luca Penni found fellow Italian Rosso Fiorentino already active there, alongside a team of French painters who were engaged in the decoration of the royal palace. Penni was to remain in Fontainbleau for the next seventeen years, becoming one of the most significant artists there. In the accounts of 1538-40, he received payment equal to that of Francesco Primaticcio.

Penni worked together with Primaticcio in the Salle Haute of the Pavillon des Poeles, and also with Rosso Fiorentino’s team, in the Gallery of François I. He also worked on the cartoons for the tapestries of the same gallery which are now conserved in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. His work had a notable influence on French sixteenth century painting and was reproduced to acclaim by Italian engravers.

His works have at times been confused with those of Francesco Primaticcio, to whom the present composition had been previously attributed. At present only a small number of paintings by him are known, including two in the Louvre, Paris: Une reine devant un roi tenant un crane – also identified as the Justice of Otto – and the August et la Sibille de Tibur (inv. nos. RF 1973 49 and RF 2012 4).

Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi:

Painted over an oak panel prepared with a white ground, the painting shows an interesting underdrawing when examined by IR reflectography (see fig. 3, fig.4). The composition is drawn with mastery, using a black dry medium, a charcoal or a black chalk, outlining the figures and their impetuous and forceful movements, sometimes very quickly as for the half-naked man pulling Helen to the right, whose face is carefully fulfilled only in a second moment and by painting, and sometimes proving a few times the placement as for the legs of the man behind him. Drawn with great effectiveness is, for example, the face of the bald man who bites the ankle of his tormentor who wields the stick, while the profile of the buildings on the horizon is also quickly outlined.