(Warsaw 1694–1783 Sankt Florian)
Virtue and Science triumphant over Vice,
oil on canvas, 59.5 x 97 cm, framed

Provenance:
Karl (1913–1979) and Gertrude (1921–2009) Pfatschbacher, Linz

Exhibited:
Sankt Florian, Augustiner Chorherrenstift, Welt des Barock, 25 April – 26 October 1986;
Salzburg, Salzburg Barockmuseum, Martino und Bartolomeo Altomonte, 9 April – 13 September 2002;
Linz, Schlossmuseum, on loan, 1 September 2013 – 1 August 2015;
Linz, OÖ Kulturquartier, on loan, 1 August 2015 – 1 November 2022

Literature:
B. Heinzl, Bartolomeo Altomonte, Vienna 1964, p. 39, no. 37;
H. Etzlstorfer, Martino und Bartolomeo Altomonte: Ölskizzen und kleine Gemälde aus österreichischen Sammlungen, exhibition catalogue, Salzburg 2002, p. 159, no. 55

We are grateful to Johann Kronbichler for confirming the attribution of the present painting to Bartolomeo Altomonte on the basis of a photograph. He suggests a date of execution to around 1760. The present painting is a bozzetto or oil sketch for the ceiling fresco in the library of the former Cistercian monastery Engelszell, Upper Austria. Kronbichler endorses the oil sketch as being a masterful work that can be counted, along with the fresco, as among the best examples of late Baroque painting in Upper Austria (private communication, November 2022).

The ceiling fresco in Engelszell, for which the present painting appears to be the preparatory sketch, is considered one of the painter’s most endearing works. The present composition relates to another ceiling fresco in the library at the Sankt Florian Abbey painted around thirteen years prior, deviating from it slightly by excluding the matrimonial alliance at the centre between the virtues and sciences, and by omitting the Holy Spirit entirely. Nonetheless, the iconographical message remains the same: the divine wisdom of the Church, with the help of the virtues and sciences, overthrows the vices – knowledge overthrows ignorance.

At the centre of the composition, illuminated by the dazzling sun that has risen behind, is the sapientia divina, the divine wisdom. To her left and right sides are the allegorical figures representing the virtues and sciences, each holding their various attributes: strength, justice, historiography, doctrine, knowledge, rhetoric, prudence, piety, astronomy, geometry, numismatics, heraldry, poetry and music. Intermingled in the scene are several putti that hold aloft the key Christian iconographical objects, namely: the Holy Bible, the Ten Commandments, and the Holy Chalice among others. Despite its busy composition, the figures float loosely and are harmoniously distributed in a perfectly regular structure. Altomonte has presented them as being light, delicate and gracefully informal. Atmosphere and the elements of colour are of crucial importance, whilst narrative has been abjured.

One of the last great painters of Baroque frescoes, Bartolomeo Altomonte was born in the suburb of Warsaw where his father Martino Altomonte (1657–1745) had been appointed as court painter to Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland. It was whilst assisting his father that Bartolomeo soon became adept with a brush, and from 1717 he continued his painterly education in Italy, where he studied in Bologna, Rome, and finally in Naples with Francesco Solimena (1657–1747). By 1722, however, Bartolomeo was back in Austria working alongside his father at Sankt Florian Abbey in Upper Austria. By now a fully accomplished artist in his own right, it was at Sankt Florian where Bartolomeo painted the ceiling frescoes in various key rooms in the monastery, including the Marmorsaal (1722–24), the Kunstkammer (1727), and the Sommerrefektorium (1727). Having married and moved to Vienna in 1730, where he too was appointed a court painter, Altomonte received two important commissions: creating the ceiling paintings for the lower sacristy at the Stephansdom (1732) and an altar painting, Saint John of Nepomuk in Glory, for the Schwarzspanierkirche (now Minoritenkirche), Vienna. In 1737 Bartolomeo returned to Upper Austria and further significant commissions soon followed, notably the ceiling frescos at the abbey church in Spital am Pyhrn (1737–39), the sacristy at Sankt Florian Abbey (1739), and the ceiling frescoes at the abbey church at Herzogenburg (1753–55). His last commission was for frescoes in the Admont Abbey Library (1774–76).