Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 December 2021
Painted in Rome around 1615, Jusepe de Ribera's series of half figures personifying the five senses invites a diplomatic audience associated with the Lincean Academy to a performance of prudence, a virtue meant to characterize the judgment of both art and of sensory experience. Ribera's series is new evidence for how the demonstration of prudence in conversation motivated ownership and display of art and shaped art's contribution to natural philosophy. Ribera's “Five Senses” articulates the distinction between sense and prudence, and reveals the importance of discussion, dissimulation, and social performance to the way early Seicento art was produced and consumed.
The research for this article was completed thanks to a Paul Mellon Predoctoral Fellowship from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. My heartfelt thanks to CASVA, to the editors and the two anonymous reviewers for Renaissance Quarterly, and also to Yoko Hara, Felipe Pereda, Stephen Campbell, Michael Fried, Adam Jasienski, Peter Mason, Florike Egmond, Brianne Cohen, Elizabeth Schwartz, and Alex Neroth van Vogelpoel. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine.