Who are the  three conversing figures shown in the Windsor Drawing, almost certainly a preparatory drawing for the Linder Gallery? The excerpt below from  A Mysterious Masterpiece: The World of the Linder Gallery proposes a hypothesis: Read more…

There is an intriguing letter in the university library of Urbino recently uncovered by Alexander Marr that provides a direct eyewitness account of the Linder Gallery from shortly after its creation. It was sent in March 1629 by an engineer, Giovanni Battista Caravaggio to his mathematical  tutor, Mutio Oddi, describing a visit to the house of the German merchant Peter Linder. Read more…

The sole surviving piece of textual evidence that sheds light on the Linder gallery interior is a letter, sent on 28 March 1629, from the architect-engineer Giovanni Battista Caravaggio to his former tutor in mathematics, Mutio Oddi of Urbino.  In the letter, Caravaggio (then in Milan) mentions a visit to their friend Pieter Linder, a German merchant who had also studied mathematics with Oddi, and who was the Urbinate scholar’s closest friend.  He describes seeing, in Linder’s study, a painting showing a picture gallery in perspective,  which is undoubtedly the Linder gallery interior.  Read more…

The Royal Collection in Windsor Castle contains a drawing (RL 12983) showing the interior of a picture gallery that bears a striking resemblance to the Linder Gallery, showing a similar architectural space. There are some key differences though. For example, the ceiling of the space in the Windsor drawing is flat, and there is a door on the left hand side. The sculpture and astronomical instruments in the drawing appear different from those in the painting. Read more…

There is no signature on the Linder Gallery, but on the red table on the right hand side of the painting is a small double-portrait. The portrait shows two men, a bearded man pointing at a drawing and the other, younger man looking at the drawing and painting. On close inspection of the drawing it can be seen that it represents the perspective scheme of the whole painting, so it is highly likely that the man on the right is the artist himself. Read more…