Category: Old Master Drawings Italian

Camerano 1625 – 1713 Rome

Black chalk heightened with white chalk, on grey paper;

273 by 180 mm

Attributed to Francesco Solimena

Canale di Serino 1657-1747 Barra

Black chalk; bears old attribution in red chalk: Solime
157 by 134 mm

Attribution of this work and its similarities to related works and themes under review with curator.

Jacopo Negretti, called Palma Il Giovane

Venice cerca 1548-1628

Pen and brown ink and grey wash over traces of black chalk;

bears inscription in pen and brown ink lower right: del Palma;
212 by 141 mm.

The above study for St. Francis does not appear to be directly related to any of Palma’s known surviving paintings. A notable scholar compares this composition with the painting of The Stigmata of St. Francis in San Rocco, Bergamo, executed in 1595. See S. Mason Rinaldi, Palma il Giovane, L’opera Completa, Milan 1984, p. 76, no. 28, reproduced p. 277, no. 222.
Another drawing by Palma of the same subject and stylistically very similar to the present sheet was sold, London, Christie’s, 14 April 1992, lot 104.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino

Cento 1591-1666 Bologna

Pen and brown ink;

a red chalk repetition of the head seen in profile on the verso;

190 by 140 mm.

This is a preparatory study for the head of the Bishop and three separate studies for the heads of the two acolytes to his left, in the altarpiece St. William of Aquitaine receiving the monastic habit, painted by Guercino in 1620 for the church of S. Gregorio, Bologna, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of the same city (fig. 1). As noted by Turner, the composition of this celebrated altarpiece, the most important commission the painter received before his departure for Rome in 1621, can be followed in a large number of surviving drawings: ‘…an unrivalled series of more than twenty preparatory studies which bear witness to the extraordinary process that lay behind the invention of the composition’. See N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, Drawings by Guercino from British Collections, London 1991, p. 58, reproduced p. 56, fig. 7. The style of the present sheet, as stressed by Turner, can be closely associated with the fascinating sheet of studies for the same composition, including the kneeling figure of St. William, formerly in Sir Denis Mahon’s collection and now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Sir Denis Mahon suggested in the Bologna exhibition catalogue that the female head on the verso must have been drawn after the death of Guercino, when the drawing was in the possession of the Gennari family.   For discussion and images, see N. Turner and C. Plazzotta, op. cit., p. 57, no. 27, reproduced; for other related drawings, see also nos. 26 and 28

Pen and brown ink;
230 by 190 mm

Creti is well known for these very finished studies of nudes and landscapes indicating a likely commercial savvy concerning the potential sale of his preliminary works. Here the drawing is in a vertical format of bathers in wooded landscapes, probably representing classical subjects such as Endymion or Apollo in elegant poses. As demonstrated by Marco Riccomini in his catalogue of Creti’s drawings, these were inspired by Creti’s knowledge of ancient sculptures. They were clearly drawn as works of art in their own right, and can now be found in several public and private collections. Diane De Grazia suggested a dating to the 1720s for a drawing of Apollo Standing in a River Landscape, from the Armand Hammer collection, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, about which she wrote: ‘Creti is known to have given many of his drawings to his friends, who must have appreciated their mysterious pastoral subjects and refined techniques.‘ See M. Riccomini, Donato Creti, Le opere su carta, Turin 2012, nos. 11.5, 63.3, 93.1, 96.13; and Master Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection, exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1987, p. 97, under no. 14.

Rome 1781 – 1835

Black chalk on paper

Approx 247 by 298 mm

 

Rome 1781 – 1835

Black chalk on paper

Approx 247 by 298 mm

Rome 1781 – 1835

Black chalk on paper

Approx 247 by 298 mm

Rome 1781 – 1835

Black chalk on paper

Approx 247 by 298 mm

Rome 1781 – 1835

Black chalk on paper

Approx 247 by 298 mm

Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Baciccio

Genoa 1639-1709 Rome

Pen and brown ink and grey wash over traces of black chalk, within partial brown ink framing lines; indented for transfer

191 by 123 mm.

This study of a saint with a Crucifix was thought by a noted scholar collector to be possibly San Carlo Borromeo, but does not appear to relate to any surviving work by Gaulli. The artist was commissioned to make various paintings of similar saints in veneration with the Crucifx, but he also collaborated on a series of prints of devotional saints and it is most likely, as it is incised, that this particular study was intended for a project of that type. An example of a drawing by Gaulli for one such engraving is Il Beato Andrea Conti, in Chicago, after which the print was executed by Benoît Farjat. An impression of the latter is in Dresden; see Giovan Battista Gaulli, Il Baciccio 1639 – 1709, exhib. cat., Ariccia, Palazzo Chigi, 2000, p. 255, no. 15 (drawing) and no. 16 (print), both reproduced.

Rome 1690 – 1768

Pen and brown ink

260 by 189 mm

Attribution to Masucci was confirmed when a painting by Mausucci of the same subject came on the art market in 1971. The gesture of the Saint in the lower right study on the present sheet is the one that is adopted and developed for use in that painting. Stylistically this can be compared with another drawing, Three studies of the Madonna and a putto, sold at Sotheby’s in London on 7 December 1987, lot 122.