Vincent Malo

Essay:

Vincent Malo was born in Cambrai in northern France around 1600. There is a degree of confusion around Malo's life and output, partially from a lack of or contradictory sources, and partially as Malo has often been confused with other northern artists working in Italy such as Vincent Adriaenssen (1595 - 1675) as well as with his son Vincent Malo II.

According to differing sources Malo began his career as a pupil of Peter Paul Rubens and later studied under David Teniers the Elder. It is not impossible that both of these assertions are true as Malo's work has similarities to both of these master's work. Indeed, Malo's oeuvre, though little documented, appears to show a great diversity with both large scale religious and mythological works and smaller genre pieces in the style of Teniers.

In 1623 he was elected a member of the Guild in Antwerp and in 1631 it is recorded that he had as a pupil Isaac Wigans. In 1634 he travelled to Italy and went to live with Cornelis de Wael in Genoa. Here he executed several commissions for religious pictures for churches in Genoa, but also painted battle scenes and landscapes. He later moved to Florence and then Rome where it is likely he died in the mid 1640s.

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This painting on copper of the Battle of the Amazons was certainly influenced by Malo's teacher Rubens who depicted the scene several times, the most pertinent of which hangs today in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. This was itself influenced by Titian's 'Battle of Spoleto' and Leonardo's 'Battle of Anghiari'. Malo's depiction has several close similarities to Rubens' work such as the gently curving bridge, the Amazon charging on her horse with her helmet covering her eyes, and an Athenian soldier on the bridge dragging an Amazonian off her horse. He also makes use of grouping the battling figures into a pyramidal composition which was an innovation of the period.

The Amazonomachy is a subject with its origins in antiquity. The Amazons were a mythical race of fierce warrior women who lived on the banks of the river Thermodon who feature in several greek mythologies including the Labours of Hercules and Jason and the Argonauts. Artists regularly referred to ancient prototypes found on Greek and Roman vases or friezes from which a tradition emerged in the renaissance and particularly during the baroque period. To a large extent the subject was popularised by Lucas Vosterman's engraving after Rubens' Munich picture.

Malo's depiction moves focus away from Rubens' bridge with its tumbling bodies and towards a skirmish on the riverbank. One mounted Amazonian warrior, her cloak billowing behind her, thrusts a spear down at an Athenian falling from his horse. The foreground is a violent cyclone of fighting and dying bodies while the background shows the churning armies and a city ablaze.

Another painting of the Battle of the Amazons by Malo is recorded in an Antwerp auction catalogue for a sale on 23 May 1769 (lot 99) from the collection of Jean van Lancker. The limited catalogue description lists the artwork as being 42 x 94 pouces (inches) so it is very unlikely to be the same work as the present painting. However, it does raise the possibility that our copper is a smaller version of a much larger work by Malo perhaps waiting to be rediscovered.

Provenance:

Private Collection, Spain