‘This will be a popular picture’: Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Tailor and the Female Gaze

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Standard

‘This will be a popular picture’ : Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Tailor and the Female Gaze. / Østermark-Johansen, Lene.

In: 19, Vol. 28, No. 2019, 03.06.2019.

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Harvard

Østermark-Johansen, L 2019, '‘This will be a popular picture’: Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Tailor and the Female Gaze', 19, vol. 28, no. 2019. https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.822

APA

Østermark-Johansen, L. (2019). ‘This will be a popular picture’: Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Tailor and the Female Gaze. 19, 28(2019). https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.822

Vancouver

Østermark-Johansen L. ‘This will be a popular picture’: Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Tailor and the Female Gaze. 19. 2019 Jun 3;28(2019). https://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.822

Author

Østermark-Johansen, Lene. / ‘This will be a popular picture’ : Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Tailor and the Female Gaze. In: 19. 2019 ; Vol. 28, No. 2019.

Bibtex

@article{d6980bc6b02542f69e6624c38cf4b9d9,
title = "{\textquoteleft}This will be a popular picture{\textquoteright}: Giovanni Battista Moroni{\textquoteright}s Tailor and the Female Gaze",
abstract = "When Giovanni Battista Moroni{\textquoteright}s portrait of a tailor entered the National Gallery collection in 1862, Elizabeth Eastlake quite rightly predicted in her diary that {\textquoteleft}This will be a popular picture{\textquoteright}. The painting was the star exhibit at the Royal Academy Moroni exhibition in 2014, and in the intervening 150 years its appeal to spectators of both sexes has been unwavering. As a sitter who knowingly gazes back at the spectator, Moroni{\textquoteright}s Tailor provokes powerful and imaginative responses from both male and female viewers. The ubiquity of The Tailor in late nineteenth-century culture — reproduced in prints, painted copies, needlepoint, and trading cards — made him a popular subject for charades and tableaux vivants. Ever since George Eliot{\textquoteright}s comparison of her sinister male protagonist Grandcourt to a Moroni in Daniel Deronda (1876), the sitter has been associated with something dark and ominous, and I shall discuss the painting{\textquoteright}s place in such fin-de-si{\`e}cle Gothic narratives as {\textquoteleft}The Accursed Cordonnier{\textquoteright} (1900) and The Lady Killer (1902) as a magic object with sinister powers. A ladies{\textquoteright} man as well as a queer icon, appealing to Henry James and Walter Pater, Moroni{\textquoteright}s {\textquoteleft}Tagliapanni{\textquoteright} is attractive in his anonymity, and I wish to question whether his appeal to a late nineteenth-century audience was gendered. Master or servant, fantasy man and ideal lover of men and women alike, the Tailor — in his effeminate red and white costume with the discreet codpiece — raises issues of the erotic and psychological appeal of old master portraiture, rooted in a sitter whose very profession is tied to the dressing and concealing of the naked human body and soul.",
keywords = "Faculty of Humanities, Giovanni Battista Moroni, popular culture, the gendered gaze, history of collections, ekphrasis, art criticism",
author = "Lene {\O}stermark-Johansen",
year = "2019",
month = jun,
day = "3",
doi = "10.16995/ntn.822",
language = "English",
volume = "28",
journal = "19",
issn = "1755-1560",
publisher = "Open Library of Humanities",
number = "2019",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - ‘This will be a popular picture’

T2 - Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Tailor and the Female Gaze

AU - Østermark-Johansen, Lene

PY - 2019/6/3

Y1 - 2019/6/3

N2 - When Giovanni Battista Moroni’s portrait of a tailor entered the National Gallery collection in 1862, Elizabeth Eastlake quite rightly predicted in her diary that ‘This will be a popular picture’. The painting was the star exhibit at the Royal Academy Moroni exhibition in 2014, and in the intervening 150 years its appeal to spectators of both sexes has been unwavering. As a sitter who knowingly gazes back at the spectator, Moroni’s Tailor provokes powerful and imaginative responses from both male and female viewers. The ubiquity of The Tailor in late nineteenth-century culture — reproduced in prints, painted copies, needlepoint, and trading cards — made him a popular subject for charades and tableaux vivants. Ever since George Eliot’s comparison of her sinister male protagonist Grandcourt to a Moroni in Daniel Deronda (1876), the sitter has been associated with something dark and ominous, and I shall discuss the painting’s place in such fin-de-siècle Gothic narratives as ‘The Accursed Cordonnier’ (1900) and The Lady Killer (1902) as a magic object with sinister powers. A ladies’ man as well as a queer icon, appealing to Henry James and Walter Pater, Moroni’s ‘Tagliapanni’ is attractive in his anonymity, and I wish to question whether his appeal to a late nineteenth-century audience was gendered. Master or servant, fantasy man and ideal lover of men and women alike, the Tailor — in his effeminate red and white costume with the discreet codpiece — raises issues of the erotic and psychological appeal of old master portraiture, rooted in a sitter whose very profession is tied to the dressing and concealing of the naked human body and soul.

AB - When Giovanni Battista Moroni’s portrait of a tailor entered the National Gallery collection in 1862, Elizabeth Eastlake quite rightly predicted in her diary that ‘This will be a popular picture’. The painting was the star exhibit at the Royal Academy Moroni exhibition in 2014, and in the intervening 150 years its appeal to spectators of both sexes has been unwavering. As a sitter who knowingly gazes back at the spectator, Moroni’s Tailor provokes powerful and imaginative responses from both male and female viewers. The ubiquity of The Tailor in late nineteenth-century culture — reproduced in prints, painted copies, needlepoint, and trading cards — made him a popular subject for charades and tableaux vivants. Ever since George Eliot’s comparison of her sinister male protagonist Grandcourt to a Moroni in Daniel Deronda (1876), the sitter has been associated with something dark and ominous, and I shall discuss the painting’s place in such fin-de-siècle Gothic narratives as ‘The Accursed Cordonnier’ (1900) and The Lady Killer (1902) as a magic object with sinister powers. A ladies’ man as well as a queer icon, appealing to Henry James and Walter Pater, Moroni’s ‘Tagliapanni’ is attractive in his anonymity, and I wish to question whether his appeal to a late nineteenth-century audience was gendered. Master or servant, fantasy man and ideal lover of men and women alike, the Tailor — in his effeminate red and white costume with the discreet codpiece — raises issues of the erotic and psychological appeal of old master portraiture, rooted in a sitter whose very profession is tied to the dressing and concealing of the naked human body and soul.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Giovanni Battista Moroni

KW - popular culture

KW - the gendered gaze

KW - history of collections

KW - ekphrasis

KW - art criticism

U2 - 10.16995/ntn.822

DO - 10.16995/ntn.822

M3 - Journal article

VL - 28

JO - 19

JF - 19

SN - 1755-1560

IS - 2019

ER -

ID: 221263828