Master Drawings 2013 - Colnaghi

KATRIN BELLINGER 

FLORIAN HÄRB 

MASTER DRAWINGS 

COLNAGHI

KATRIN BELLINGER 

FLORIAN HÄRB 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

We would like to express our gratitude to the many 

friends and scholars whose generous help, admirable 

expertise, and thorough research, have unearthed a 

wealth of new information on many of the drawings 

presented here, some of which have not been seen 

in public for over half a century. 

MASTER DRAWINGS 

2013 

Stijn Alsteens, Anna Maria Ambrosini Massari, Laura 

Bennett, David Bindman, Marco Simone Bolzoni, Mark 

Brady, Virginia Brix, Caroline Corrigan, Sue Cubitt, Gail 

Davidson, Ursula Verena Fischer Pace, Gino Franchi, 

Francesco Grisolia, Christina Grummt, Clémentine 

Gustin-Gomez, Niall Hobhouse, Peter Iaquinandi, Paul 

Joannides, Gerhard Kehlenbeck, David Lachenmann, 

Thomas Le Claire, Petra Lüer, Alexandra Murphy, Peter 

Prange, Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, Jean-Claude 

Sicre, Chiara Travisonni, Rollo Whately, Richard Whatling, 

and Eunice Williams. 

Our particular thanks go to Livia Schaafsma, Gay 

Naughton, and Martin Grässle, for their tireless efforts 

in the preparation of the catalogue. 

KATRIN BELLINGER / FLORIAN HÄRB 

COLNAGHI

GIULIO PIPPI, CALLED GIULIO ROMANO 

Rome c. 1492/99–1546 Mantua 

1 

BACCHUS AS AUTUMN 

Pen and brown ink, brown wash 

238 × 98 mm, the upper corners chamfered 

PROVENANCE 

Unidentified collector, his inscription, lower right, Jul. Romano. 

Sir Thomas Lawrence (L. 2445) 

Samuel Woodburn, purchased in 1836 by 

Lord Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere (L. 2710b), 

by descent 

Sale: London, Sotheby’s, Drawings by Giulio Romano and other 

16th Century masters, 5 December 1972, lot 53, illustrated 

Private collection 

LITERATURE 

Catalogue of the Ellesmere Collection of Drawings at 

Bridgewater House, London, 1898, cat. no. 157 

F. Hartt, Giulio Romano, 2 vols., New Haven, 1958, I, pp. 186 

and 301, cat. no. 242 

S. Massari, Giulio Romano pinxit et delineavit. Opere grafiche 

autografe di collaborazione e bottega, exhibition catalogue, 

Rome, Istituto nazionale per la grafica, 1993, pp. 181–83, under 

no. 170 

Although this drawing of the god of wine was among the 

most elegant and charming of those by Giulio formerly 

in the Ellesmere collection, it has been little discussed. 

Fig. 1 

It shows Bacchus as Autumn and was one of a quartet 

of allegorical figures of the Seasons; the other three 

drawings (representing Flora, Pomona and, probably, 

Saturn) are lost but the four, maybe originally on the same 

sheet, were etched by Battista del Moro on a single plate 

(283 × 409 mm, Fig. 1), c. 1540. Bacchus in the drawing 

and the etching has the same dimensions, and this was 

probably true of the other figures too. 

Fredrick Hartt believed the four figures to have been 

planned for execution as garden statuary, an obviously 

appropriate role for the Seasons. He was surely correct 

about their general purpose and function, but it is far from 

certain that they were made for the walled garden of the 

Appartamento di Troia in the Palazzo Ducale as he pro - 

posed, and they have no apparent thematic or stylistic 

relation to the three sharply executed pen drawings – two 

of them depicting pendant narratives of Hercules and 

Apollo – also conjecturally linked by Hartt to this scheme 

and interpreted as designs for reliefs. 

As drawn here Bacchus is relatively flat in modelling and, 

although he glances over his shoulder, was clearly intended 

for an isolated figure. The technique and the sharp 

illumination from the left, casting a thin shadow on the 

vine that curls behind him, suggests that he was to be in 

shallow rather than high relief, a supposition reinforced by 

lack of any three-dimensional emphasis: it is notable that 

hatching is applied only minimally. However, the denser 

and fuller shadows in the etching rather suggest high 

relief, or even free-standing forms, as both Hartt and 

Massari concluded, so the precise purpose of Bacchus 

and the other figures must be left open. 

As for location the Seasons seem more suitable for the 

predominantly convivial iconography of Palazzo Te than 

the Palazzo Ducale, but the Seasons can now be found in 

neither building. Bacchus, however, appears twice among 

the stucco panels in the Te, as an isolated figure in the 

Camera delle Aquile of 1527–28 1 and leading the vintage 

in the Camera degli Stucchi of c. 1530. 2 This Bacchus 

comes closer in design to the former and was no doubt 

con sciously developed from it; Giulio continually re-cycled 

and modified earlier ideas. 

3 

4

GIULIO PIPPI, CALLED GIULIO ROMANO 

3 

1 

The handling of the present drawing is very characteristic, 

with its long, thinly penned, slightly wavering contours, 

frequently broken to suggest mobility; the light wash 

thrown across the forms, more to establish atmosphere 

and light than for modelling, looks back to certain drawings 

by Raphael, such as the British Museum’s study for 

the Disputa, which shows Giulio’s master at his airiest; but 

the drawing finds a parallel too in the work of Giulio’s 

slightly younger contemporary, Parmigianino, whose artificiality 

of form, playful treatment of classical antiquity, 

and breezy employment of wash find echoes in Giulio. 

Giulio would, of course, have known prints after Parmigianino, 

including his mythologies and he would have responded 

to Parmigianino’s combination of angularity and 

softness. But if the drawing recalls Giulio’s predecessors 

and contemporaries, it also anticipates Tiepolo and his 

world. This proto-rococo light-heartedness co-exists in 

Giulio with the Sturm and Drang of the Sala dei Giganti 

and the Sala di Troia, and lightness and wit reach a peak 

in his work in the mid-1530s, a date stylistically appropriate 

for this Bacchus with his pronounced elongation and 

relaxed ease of demeanour. 

PAUL JOANNIDES 

6

GIORGIO VASARI 

Arezzo 1511–1574 Florence 

2 

SAINT EUSTACE 

Pen and brown ink, brown wash over black chalk 

258 × 99 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Probably Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici 

Probably Gualtiero van der Voort, by 1657 

J.P. Zoomer (Lugt 1511), his inscription Geo: Vasari 

Mely Ehrensberger, Bern, her sale: London, Christie’s, 

29 June 1971, lot 121, illustrated 

Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, New York 


EXHIBITIONS 

Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, European Drawings from 

Canadian Collections, 1500–1900, ed. M. Cazort-Taylor, 1976, 

cat. no. 3, illustrated (catalogue entry by D. McTavish) 

Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, Leonardo da Vinci, 

Michelangelo, and the Renaissance in Florence, ed. D. Franklin, 

2005, cat. no. 109, illustrated (catalogue entry by F. Härb) 

LITERATURE 

L. Corti, Vasari, catalogo completo dei dipinti, I gigli dell’arte, 

no. 3, Florence, 1989, p. 37 

F. Härb, Giorgio Vasari. Die Zeichnungen, Ph.D. thesis, 

University of Vienna, 1994, 3 vols. 1994, I, p.117, cat. no. 95, 

II, pl.95 

This carefully executed drawing relates to Vasari’s tripartite 

altarpiece of the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception, 

painted in 1542–43 for the family chapel of Biagio Mei in 

S. Pietro Cigoli, Lucca, and now in the Museo di Villa 

Guinigi of that town. It is a study, with several differences, 

for the figure of Saint Eustace in the right side panel 

(Fig. 1). The left panel is dedicated to San Biagio (St. Blaise), 

patron saint of the donor. According to the Ricordanze, 

the artist’s account book, Vasari received the commission 

on 20 July 1542 and completed the painting on 31 October 

1543. He further states that the patron wished his altarpiece 

to be similar to that of the same subject finished 

about a year earlier, in 1541, for the chapel of Vasari’s 

friend and patron, Bindo Altoviti, in the church of Santi 

Apostoli, Florence. 1 This was Vasari’s first major altarpiece 

for a Florentine Church and proved to be extremely popular. 

Several small-scale versions and large replicas by the 

artist and his workshop, as well as numerous variations by 

subsequent Florentine painters well into the seventeenth 

century testify to the great success of Vasari’s painting. 2 

While the Lucca altarpiece is largely based on Altoviti’s 

Vasari made numerous changes to the positions and 

gestures of the figures and rearranged their disposition. 

He also reduced their number by one and added two 

lateral panels with saints, thus repeating an altarpiece 

type that he had first employed in his Descent from the 

Cross at Camaldoli (1539–40), and then used throughout 

his career. 3 

A large drawing by Vasari in the Louvre shows the Lucca 

altarpiece set in its architecture, with the donor’s coat of 

arms and additional grotesque decoration. 

It is not known if it was ever executed 

as such, for its original setting 

is now lost (Fig. 2). 4 The Louvre drawing 

matches the Lucca paintings in 

most details, even the figures in the 

side panels correspond closely. This 

is remarkable as such finished drawings 

were usually made at an early 

stage in the design process and were 

almost always subject to subsequent 

modifications. Given that the Louvre 

drawing lacks virtually any pentimenti, 

it is quite conceivable that it was 

made as a ricordo of the altarpiece 

rather than as a preparatory design. 

The figure of Saint Eustace in the present 

drawing differs from that in the 

Louvre sheet and the painting, respectively. 

In the latter, Vasari gave 

the figure a stronger twist, bringing it 

Fig. 1 

in more line with the Mannerist ideal 

of the figura serpentinata. By simultaneously 

showing the figure’s front and back he achieved a 

highly artificial effect for which, on another occasion, he 

was specifically praised by his early mentor, Pietro Aretino, 

in a letter of 15 December 1541. 5 The Lucca painting was 

executed a few years after Vasari’s return from a prolonged 

stay in Bologna (1539–40), where Parmigianino’s Emilian 

works had a strong impact on his style. This is particularly 

3 

8


3 

2 

notable in the fine cross-hatching and curved parallel hatching 

of this drawing. Another source, as David McTavish has 

noted, was Dürer’s famous Saint Eustace engraving of 1501. 6 

The reclining dog and the deer’s head in the drawing 

derive directly from the print. While Vasari ultimately did 

not use the dog in the painting, the foreshortened head of 

another in the lower left is clearly borrowed from that in 

the centre right of Dürer’s print. Dürer’s engravings were 

greatly admired among Florentine artists – Pontormo 

quoted them in his Certosa di Galluzzo fresco cycle – and 

Vasari used them in his own compositions throughout his 

career. 

The fairly complex iconography of the Immaculate Conception 

is typical of the allegorical paintings Vasari made 

early in his career. Often these were devised with the help 

of humanists. According to his Descrizione, the autobiographical 

account of his own works at the end of the 1568 

edition of the Vite, Vasari devised the iconography with 

his patron Altoviti and with the help of molti comuni amici, 

uomini letterati, one of whom may have been Giovanni 

Pollastra, Vasari’s advisor and early mentor at Arezzo. 7 As 

David Franklin has pointed out, the iconography is essentially 

based on a conflation of two passages in the Old 

Testament, Genesis 3:15 (the Virgin as Second Eve to bring 

about the vanquishing of the serpent) and Revelation 12:1 

(the Woman of the Apocalypse). 8 It has also been prev - 

iously noted that Vasari took recourse to Rosso Fiorentino’s 

now-lost cartoon for one of the lunettes in the atrium 

of SS. Annunziata, Arezzo, depicting the Virgin as Second 

Eve, a concetto that was devised by Pollastra. Vasari was 

familiar with Rosso’s designs, which he described in the 

artist’s Vita, and he also owned Rosso’s small-scale model 

(probably wooden with drawings) of the entire decoration. 

9 The figures of Adam and Eve, bound to the Tree of 

Knowledge, and the serpent with a human upper body, 

depend on Rosso’s designs, known by several copies of 

now-lost drawings by Rosso. 10 

Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David, and the other 

Kings in succession, according to the order of time; all I 

say, bound by both arms, excepting Samuel and John the 

Baptist, who are bound by one arm only, because they 

were blessed in the womb.” The idea to arrange the 

figures ‘according to the order of time’ almost certainly 

comes from Sogliani’s Dispute over the Immaculate Conception 

of 1531– 36, now in the Galleria dell’Accademia, 

Florence, where such order is kept. 

A drawing by Vasari of Saint Eustace is mentioned in a 

letter of 19 November 1657, written by Paolo Del Sera to 

the great collector Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici regarding 

an exchange of drawings between the latter and the 

Dutch collector Gualtiero van der Voort. According to this 

letter, Leopoldo received seventeen drawings from Van 

der Voort, who in turn chose only seven, among them 

quel Sant’Eustachio del Vasari. Apparently van der Voort 

did not aim at the sheets of the highest quality, for, at 

least in Del Sera’s view, he selected “not even the most 

exquisite drawings” (neanco de più esquisiti). It is not inconceivable, 

even likely, that the present drawing, which 

bears the stamp of the Dutch art dealer Jan P. Zoomer 

(1641–1724), is to be identified with that formerly in the 

collection of Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici. 11 

Vasari’s extensive description of the Altoviti painting applies 

largely also to the Lucca altarpiece. The upper register 

shows the Virgin, “clothed by the sun and crowned 

with twelve stars” and supported by angels. With her right 

foot she steps on the horns of the serpent, whose hands 

are bound behind his back and whose tail is wound 

around the trunk of the tree. Bound to the roots of the 

Tree of Knowledge in the center are Adam and Eve (“the 

first transgressors of the commandment of God”). Then, 

Vasari writes, “bound to the other branches [are] Abraham, 

Fig. 2 

10


Arezzo 1511–1574 Florence 

3 

COSIMO REVIVING THE TOWN 

OF VOLTERRA 

Pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white 

over black chalk on blue paper, squared in black chalk 

152 x 186 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Sale: London, Christie’s, 23 June 1970, lot 54, illustrated 

Ralph Holland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by descent 

EXHIBITIONS 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Hatton Gallery, Italian and other 

Drawings, 1500–1800, 1974, cat no. 10, pl. VI (cat. by 

K. Rowntree and R. Holland) 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Hatton Gallery, Italian Drawings 

(1525–1570) from the Collection of Ralph Holland, 1982, 

cat. no. 8, pl. IIa 

LITERATURE 

Antichità Viva, IX, 1970, 3, p. 71, illustrated 

C. Monbeig-Goguel, Vasari et son Temps, Inventaire Générale 

des Dessins Italiens, I, Paris, 1972, under cat. no. 210 

E. Allegri and A. Cecchi, Palazzo Vecchio e i Medici, guida 

storica, Florence, 1980, p. 152, cat. no. 7, illustrated 

F. Härb, Giorgio Vasari. Die Zeichnungen, Ph.D. thesis, 

University of Vienna, 3 vols., 1994, I, p. 197, cat. no. 238, II, 

pl. 238 

R.A. Scorza, “Vasari and Gender: A New Drawing for the Sala 

di Cosimo I,” in Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 1995– 96, 

pp. 65–74, illustrated 

F. Härb in D. Franklin (et al.), Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo 

and the Renaissance in Florence, exhibition catalogue, Ottawa, 

National Gallery of Canada, 2005, p. 300, under cat. no. 110, 

and p. 355 

towns. In a letter to Cosimo of 12 May 1558 Vasari refers 

to the Sala, except for the floor, as finished. 1 

Devised by the humanist Cosimo Bartoli the iconographic 

programme for the ceiling paintings survives in a letter to 

Vasari written in 1556, which contains also the invenzioni 

for the Sala di Cosimo il Vecchio and that of Cosimo’s 

father, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere. 2 The initial programme 

for the Sala di Cosimo I, however, included only 

one allegory of a Tuscan town, Pisa, while the other compartments 

were to show various virtues associated with 

the Duke. These virtues were later abandoned in favour of 

a programme emphasising Cosimo’s role as a reviver of, 

and builder of fortifications in, the towns of his dominion. 

Here, as Rick Scorza has pointed out, Vasari and Bartoli 

drew on the classical motif of Roma resurgens, the reviving 

of towns by Roman Emperors frequently represented 

on Roman coins. The Tuscan towns are either shown as 

men or women, depending on their names’ gender. 3 This 

programme is also fully developed in a large and finished 

design for the entire ceiling decoration in the Louvre (Fig. 

2). 4 Subsequently, however, the individual scenes as 

shown in the Louvre drawing were partially rearranged. 5 

Our drawing shows Cosimo reviving the old Etruscan 

Town of Volterra and is a study for the compartment to 

the right of the tondo with Cosimo among his Architects, 

Sculptors and Engineers, a damaged drawing for which is 

preserved in the Castello Sforzesco, Milan. 6 It was almost 

certainly part of a large and highly finished design for the 

entire ceiling that was presented to Duke Cosimo for approval. 

Two other such drawings, executed in the same 

technique on blue paper with their shape corresponding 

to that of the ceiling painting, have come down to us. To 

3 

In 1556, shortly after work began in the Quartiere degli 

Elementi at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Vasari and his 

team embarked on the decoration of the Quartiere di 

Leone X. Named after the first Medici pope, Leo X 

(1475–1521), these quarters consisted of six rooms and a 

small chapel that formed Duke Cosimo I’s private chambers. 

This drawing relates to the ceiling decoration in one 

of these rooms, known as the Sala di Cosimo I (Fig. 1). 

More specifically, it is a study for one of eight spandrel 

paintings flanking the four tondi in the vault, depicting 

significant events in the life of the Duke. Each spandrel 

shows Cosimo together with various allegories of Tuscan 

Fig. 1 

12


3 

3 

the left of the tondo Vasari depicted Cosimo reviving the 

Town of Fivizzano, for which a study, in the same technique 

and spandrel shape as ours, is at the Yale University 

Art Gallery, New Haven. 7 Initially, however, as can be seen 

in the Louvre drawing, the Fivizzano scene was projected 

to the left of Cosimo visiting the Fortifications of Elba, while 

the town of Pistoia would have formed the pendant to our 

scene to the left of Cosimo among his Architects, Sculptors 

and Engineers. Eventually the Pistoia scene was transferred 

to the opposite wall. A third study for one of the eight spandrels, 

showing Cosimo reviving the Town of San Sepolcro, is 

at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (Fig. 3). 8 

The present drawing follows, with some differences, the little 

sketch in the large ceiling design at the Louvre. As Scorza 

has shown, in the latter drawing the female figure presents 

a large crystal of rock salt to Cosimo, alluding to the ancient 

city’s salt-works, which Vasari omitted from our design and 

the final painting. Instead he showed the Duke awarding a 

mural crown to the female figure, who is now simply pointing 

with her left arm to a saltpan in the lower right corner. In 

the Ragionamenti, Vasari’s hypothetical dialogue in which 

he guides Cosimo’s son, Principe Francesco, through the 

Palazzo Vecchio, he describes the allegory of Volterra as an 

“old woman drawing the Duke’s attention to the salt pans 

with boiling saline, and His Excellency places the mural 

crown on her head.” 9 The drawing matches the painting 

in most details, only the distant view of Volterra is not 

included, as was often the case with drawings of this type. 

We know from Vasari’s letters that he used to dispatch his 

assistants to make topographical sketches of the required 

sites, which were then incorporated into the paintings. 

Originally, this drawing almost certainly belonged to the 

same large and highly finished sheet as those at Ottawa 

and New Haven. Their spandrel-like shape is also most 

certainly down to Vasari himself, reflecting his working 

practice particularly in his later, often time-constrained, 

years. It was Vasari (and never an assistant), who prepared 

the large ceiling designs, which were then often reviewed 

first by his iconographic advisor, Vincenzo Borghini, and 

ultimately by Cosimo I. Those reviews occasionally required 

changes to either iconographic details or, quite frequently, 

the positioning of individual scenes within a greater scheme. 

As a result, such large and finished drawings (based on 

the size of our drawing, the overall design would have 

been about 76 cm in length) were frequently cut in order 

to rearrange individual scenes (or replacing them with 

new ones) while at the same time avoiding the time-consuming 

process of making a new finished drawing from 

scratch. The most prominent, though by no means the only, 

such drawing, parts of which survive in various collections, 

was the so-called cartone grande, a large though in this 

case rather sketchy drawing originally also about 76 cm in 

length that shows Vasari’s and Borghini’s initial scheme for 

the ceiling paintings of the Sala Grande in the Palazzo 

Vecchio (1563). 

Fig. 2 Fig. 3 

14

GIROLAMO MACCHIETTI 

Florence 1535–1592 Florence 

4 

5 

HEAD OF A YOUNG MAN 

IN PROFILE TO THE LEFT 

Red and white chalk, over traces of black chalk, 

on red prepared paper 

203 × 162 mm 

and 

HEAD OF A YOUNG MAN 

LOOKING DOWN 

Red and white chalk, over traces of black chalk, 

on red prepared paper 

203 × 165 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Sale: London, Sotheby’s, 9 June 1955, lot 52, illustrated 


LITERATURE 

P. Pouncey, “Contributo a Girolamo Macchietti,” in Bollettino 

d’arte, 47, 1962, pp. 238–39, figs. 4, 6 [republished in M.Di 

Giampaolo, Philip Pouncey, raccolta di scritti (1937–1985), 

Rimini, 1994, pp. 86–87, figs. 4, 6] 

V. Pace, “Maso da San Friano,” in Bolletino d’Arte, 61, 1976, 

p. 81, note 52 

M. Privitera, “Girolamo Macchietti a Napoli,” in Arte-Documento. 

Rivista di storia e tutela dei Beni Culturali, 4, 1990, p. 118, 

note 121 

M. Privitera, “Nuovi disegni di Girolamo Macchietti”, in 

Paragone, 529–33, 1994, pp. 109–10, 112, note 14, fig. 58b 

M. Privitera, Girolamo Macchietti, un pittore dello Studiolo 

di Francesco I (Firenze 1535–1592), Milan, 1996, p. 162, 

cat. nos. 66–67, illustrated 

According to Raffaele Borghini, 1 Macchietti first trained 

under Michele Tosini, whose style at the time had become 

somewhat dated, but he was soon drawn into the orbit of 

Giorgio Vasari who, in 1555, had just been put in charge of 

the entire decoration and transformation of the Palazzo 

Vecchio, the old seat of the Florentine Republic, into a 

modern ducal residence for Cosimo I de Medici. For 

about three years, until 1558, Macchietti worked under 

Vasari in the Palazzo, together with Cristofano Gherardi 

(who died in 1556) and Giovanni Stradanus. Macchietti’s 

part in the decoration is difficult to establish with precision 

but in 1557 he is documented to have designed the 

tapestries for the Sala di Giove and Sala di Ercole. Only 

one of these hangings (but no preparatory drawing) survives, 

and this suggests that even in these early works 

Macchietti had stylistically little to do with his master. One 

of the frescoes in the Sala di Cosimo I has recently been 

attributed to him, but there the artist worked to Vasari’s 

designs. Around 1560 Macchietti left for Rome to broaden 

his artistic horizon before returning to Florence in 1563, 

the year Vasari began the decoration of the Sala Grande 

in the Palazzo Vecchio. Though Macchietti did not enter 

the inner circle of Vasari’s Sala Grande workshop 

(Stradanus, Battista Naldini, and Jacopo Zucchi, were the 

leading figures) he contributed to the vast ephemeral 

decorations put up in 1565 on the occasion of the wedding 

of Giovanna of Austria and Cosimo’s son, Principe 

Francesco I. de’ Medici. From the subsequent decade and 

3 

Philip Pouncey was the first to recognise the characteristic 

hand of Girolamo Macchietti in these two drawings, 

which had previously been considered to be by the late 

fifteenth and early sixteenth century Florentine painter 

Raffaellino del Garbo (1466–1524). And while Pouncey 

could see the drawings when they were sold at Sotheby’s 

in 1955, all subsequent commentators have known them 

but from photographs. The reappearance of these outstanding 

drawings today, with their correct attribution 

and nearly sixty years after their sale at auction, is thus of 

great interest to connoisseurs of Florentine Renaissance 

drawings. 

Fig. 1 

16

GIROLAMO MACCHIETTI 

3 

4 | 5 

a half, with Macchietti’s style now fully developed, date his 

most successful paintings, among which are the Adoration 

of the Magi in San Lorenzo (1567– 68) and the Martyrdom 

of Saint Lawrence in S. Maria Novella (1573), to name but 

two of his altarpieces. In circa 1571– 72 he contributed, under 

Vasari’s supervision and alongside the élite of the 

young Florentine painters, his most famous works, the 

panels of the Baths of Pozzuoli and Medea rejuvenating 

Jason (Fig. 1), for the Studiolo of Francesco I. de Medici 

located adjacent to the Sala Grande in the Palazzo Vecchio. 

As has been noted before, our drawings of a Head of a 

young Man in Profile to the left and a Head of a young 

Man looking down show the same model from a different 

angle. Pouncey considered the former a study for the head 

of Medea in the Studiolo painting. The similarities between 

these two heads are indeed striking. That Macchietti 

would have used a drawing of a male model for a female 

figure in one of his paintings would not have been 

unusual. Indeed, he used a life study of a seated male 

nude now at Edinburgh, 2 executed in the same technique 

as ours, for the figure of the Virgin in his San Lorenzo 

Adoration. 3 More recently, however, Marta Privitera, 

suggested that our drawing was made slightly later, as the 

same model (though not exactly the same head) appears 

in Macchietti’s Glory of Saint Lawrence (Florence, Uffizi) of 

1577. 4 

Privitera further considered our Head of young Man 

looking down to be a study for Macchietti’s tondo of Saint 

Lawrence (Florence, collection of Gianfranco Luzzetti), 

which she dates to the middle of the 1570s (Fig. 2). 5 And 

Fig. 2 

while her dating of our drawings to that period has much 

to commend it, the drawings may well have been made a 

few years earlier, for the head of our Young Man looking 

down, with his slighly pointy chin, is extremely close in 

type, and likely showing the same model as, Macchietti’s 

Louvre study of a seated youth, which is preparatory for a 

figure in his Baths of Pozzuoli. 6 The head is also extremely 

close to, and may have actually been used for, that of the 

Virgin in Macchietti’s altarpiece of the Madonna della 

Cintola (Florence, Soprintendenza), which also dates from 

circa 1572. It is quite possible, therefore, that the two 

drawings were made at the time of, and in the case of the 

Head of a Young Man in Profile possibly for one of, 

Macchietti’s Studiolo paintings and that he subsequently 

reused them in other works. 

Macchietti’s drawings oeuvre is relatively small, yet the 

surviving sheets reveal him as a highly gifted and meticulous 

draughtsman, who took great care in the preparation 

for the individual figures in his paintings. His style is highly 

independent of Vasari’s or Salviati’s. Like several of his 

fellow Studiolo friends, such as Naldini, Maso da San Friano, 

or Mirabello Cavalori, he, too, looked instead to the 

works and techniques of the artists from the beginning of 

the century (that is, Vasari’s and Salviati’s teachers), such 

as Andrea del Sarto and his pupils Rosso and, especially, 

Pontormo. Like them, but unlike his master Vasari, Macchietti 

put the life study at the core of his artistic endeavor. 

This is beautifully attested to by several extant figure studies 

for his Baths of Pozzuoli and a study of a seated nude for 

the Martyrdom of San Lawrence in the Metropolitan 

Museum of Art, 7 which are all executed in the same technique 

as our drawings, in red (with some white) chalk on 

red prepared paper. 8 Paper prepared with colour is a 

technique that can frequently be found in artists of the 

late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (thus making 

the old attribution to del Garbo somewhat understandable), 

as well as in Pontormo’s sketchbooks, but that was 

mostly (though not entirely) abandoned by the generation 

of Vasari and Salviati. And while emulating the spirit, and 

indeed the technique and media of Andrea’s or Pontormo’s 

life studies, our two drawings display a degree of finish 

and refinement that the old generation had hardly been 

concerned with. Yet it is this particular combination of observation 

of nature with the refinement of execution that 

distinguishes Macchietti and other Studiolo artists from 

their great High Renaissance models and fully validates 

their much-admired place in the history of Florentine 

draughtsmanship. 

18

PAOLO FARINATI 

Verona 1524–1606 Verona 

6 

ALLEGORY OF TEMPERANCE 

Inscribed by the artist, upper left margin, …sta ma 

a questo / stava melio, and numbered in white chalk, 

lower right, 16 

Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over black chalk, 

heightened with white 

260 × 184 mm 

PROVENANCE 


Executed in Farinati’s favorite technique on Venetian carta 

azzurra (blue paper), this is a characteristic working drawing, 

which explores two different poses of a figure of Temperance, 

one of the four cardinal virtues. More specifically, 

the drawing shows two solutions to the figure’s right arm 

and hand, which holds one of this allegory’s best known 

attributes, the pitcher of water, with which she extinguishes 

a fire (signifying sexual moderation – water putting out the 

fires of lust). She is also holding a torch, again symbolizing 

the fire defeated by water, and a palm branch. As codified 

in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1593) sometime after our 

drawing was probably made, Temperance is often depicted 

with a bridle (which restrains a horse), an hourglass, a 

clock, or an elephant. 1 

The precise purpose of this drawing is not known though 

it was likely made for one of the houses and villas in and 

around Verona that Farinati decorated from the 1550s. 

While the figure of Temperance could have been part of a 

façade decoration, more likely it would have been destined 

for a painted niche or a wall between two windows as part 

of a set of painted virtues. Several comparable drawings 

of single figures, often allegorical or military in character, 

survive. Close in type and style are an Allegory of Arithmetic 

in the British Museum, 2 a Venus and Cupid in the 

Louvre, 3 and a study of an Allegorical Figure in the Metro - 

politan Museum of Art, New York, 4 which also shows an inscription 

in Farinati’s characteristic handwriting. The fragmented 

handwriting in our drawing, in which the artist 

seems to express a preference for one solution over another 

may well refer to one, almost certainly the upper one, of 

his two alternative designs for the figure’s right arm. 

decades. But whereas Farinati’s later years are well documented, 

thanks in particular to the survival of his Giornale 

(account book, 1573–1606), his early career is obscure. His 

first documented work is the altarpiece of Saint Martin, 

painted in 1552 for Mantua Cathedral, which recently had 

been renovated from Giulio Romano’s plans. 

Before that, Farinati is likely to have been most active in 

painting façade frescoes, often of antique subjects. By 

mid-century, classical Roman history had gained wide - 

spread appeal as a subject for fresco decorations throughout 

much of Italy. But in Verona, which boasted the most 

extensive antique architectural remains in North Italy, such 

subjects enjoyed particular popularity. Sadly, the appearance 

of Farinati’s early façade frescoes remains largely 

hypothetical. They have all been destroyed – like so many 

other façade frescoes of this period – and no reliable 

evidence for their reconstruction has yet been discovered. 

Paolo Farinati enjoyed a longer career than most of his 

Vero nese contemporaries. Altogether, he worked in his 

birthplace and the surrounding area throughout six 

20

ANTONIO VIVIANI, CALLED IL SORDO DI URBINO 

Urbino 1560–1620 Urbino 

7 

THE INCREDULITY OF SAINT THOMAS 

Inscribed in pen and brown ink, lower left, Zuchero 

Pen and red and brown ink, red wash, over red chalk 

331 × 276 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Private collection, France 

The composition of this Incredulity of Saint Thomas instantly 

brings to mind the foremost works of the Counter-Reform - 

ation in Rome in the 1570s. One would think, for instance, 

of Federico Zuccaro’s paintings in the Cathedral of Orvieto, 1 

or Girolamo Muziano’s paintings in the Ruiz chapel in Santa 

Caterina dei Funari, 2 works that served the painters then residing 

in Rome as a point of reference for their own work 

until the end of the century. Yet even though the composition 

of the present drawing is reminiscent of the works of 

the 1570s by these two artists, the handling and the style of 

the figures and physiognomies suggest a somewhat later 

date to approximately the 1580s. 

Stylistically, in fact, this sheet belongs squarely to that strand 

of Roman painting generally referred to as the maniera 

sistina, a hightly characteristic and fairly uniform style employed 

by numerous painters who worked on the decorative 

projects commissioned by Pope Sixtus V (1585–90), 

including such prominent places of papal power as the 

Lateran Palace, the Scala Santa, and the Vatican Library. 

The draughtsman of our Incredulity of Saint Thomas 

belongs here and, more to the point, is certainly to be 

found among the numerous painters who hailed from 

the Marches to find work in one of the many Sistine 

building sites. This is evident in the drawing from such 

typical Marchigian features as the slight awkwardness in 

the rendering of the anatomies, and a taste for facial types 

whose expressions border on the grotesque, such as tiny 

and close-set eyes, protruding chins, broad foreheads, 

and small and pointed noses. These features are generally 

reminiscent of Marchigian draughtsmen in Rome and 

particularly of Andrea Lilio (c. 1555– c. 1527) of Ancona; 

and it is indeed one of Lilio’s fellow countrymen, Antonio 

Viviani, that I believe this beautiful drawing should be given 

to. 3 

A native of Urbino, Viviani worked shoulder to shoulder 

with Lilio on several occasions (in the Scala Santa, the 

Vatican Library, in San Girolamo degli Schiavoni). Before 

moving to Rome in the early 1580s he had trained in the 

workshop of Federico Barocci, who remained a constant 

point of reference for Viviani’s entire career. Yet the Baroccesque 

streak in Viviani, while always visible in his paintings, 

was not all-encompassing; indeed, more than any of Barocci’s 

other strict disciples from Urbino, he developed a style that 

was both personal and independent of his master’s. While 

it is difficult to pin down the hand of the youthful Viviani in 

many of the Sistine projects he worked on after his arrival in 

Rome, it is even more challenging to identify the drawings 

from this budding phase in his career. The present Incre - 

dulity of Saint Thomas, however, corresponds extremely 

closely with Viviani’s fresco of Fra Girolamo d’Ascoli christening 

a Tartar King in the Vatican Library (Fig. 1), first identified 

as Viviani’s work by Giuseppe Scavizzi and then by 

Alessandro Zuccari. 4 In the figures of Christ and Saint 

Thomas, for instance, both the fresco, with its numerous 

Baroccesque references, and the drawing, where such references 

are just emerging, are extremely close in their rendering 

of the draperies and garments, in the gestures of 

the protagonists and, above all, in the facial types. 

As far as the technique is concerned that Viviani used in 

this drawing, one might point out the rare and fascinating 

combination of red chalk and watercolour of the same 

colour, a technique found but in few drawings of the period, 

perhaps the most beautiful of which is Taddeo Zuccaro’s 

famous sheet of studies for the Blinding of Elymas and the 

Sacrifice at Lystra in the Art Institute of Chicago. 5 

Fig. 1 

MARCO SIMONE BOLZONI 

22

FRANCESCO VANNI 

Siena 1563–1610 Siena 

8 

PORTRAIT OF PASSITEA CROGI 

Black, red and white chalk on blue paper 

182 × 145 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Sir John Pope-Hennessy, his sale: London, Christie’s, 

7 July 1998, lot 85, illustrated 

Private collection, New York 

LITERATURE 

F. Viatte, Dessins Toscans XVI e – XVIII e siècles, I, 

1560– 1640, Paris, 1988, under cat. no. 524 

Beata Passitea Crogi was the daughter of the painter 

Piero Crogi who worked with Arcangelo Salimbeni, Vanni’s 

first master and stepfather, as well as father of the betterknown 

painter Ventura. A capuchin nun, Passitea was 

known for wearing men’s clothes to better help the poor. 

In 1597 she left Siena for Florence, and settled in a house 

in Via della Colonna with eighteen of her companions, 

under the protection of Cristina of Lorraine, wife of Grand 

Duke Ferdinando I de‘ Medici. In 1602, she went to France 

in the entourage of Ferdinando’s niece, Maria de’ Medici, 

who had married King Henri IV of France in 1600. In France 

she belonged to the circle of the Queen, denounced as 

dévotes et sorcières italiennes in the Duc de Sully’s Mémoires. 

She died at Siena on 14 May 1615 and was buried 

at the monastery of Saint Egidio. She was later beatified. 1 

painter Federico Barocci, whose highly realistic, coloured 

chalk portraits made from life exerted a great influence 

over Vanni’s drawing style. By the 1590s, Vanni had returned 

to Siena where he became the city’s leading 

painter providing numerous altarpieces and private devotional 

paintings to its churches and confraternities. In circa 

1600– 04 he worked again in Rome, where he painted one 

of his most famous altarpieces, the Fall of Simon Magus, 

for the church of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican, before 

returning to Siena for the remaining years of his life. 

Another drawing of Passitea Crogi, of equal size and identi - 

cal in technique, is in the Louvre. 2 There are some differen - 

ces in the expression of the face, with our drawing conveying 

a hint of a smile. A third portrait in the same technique 

is in the Uffizi, 3 while a drawing by Ottavia Maria Leoni in 

the Louvre shows the sitter at a similar age to our sheet. 4 

The identification of the sitter is due to an old annotation 

on the verso of the Louvre drawing and to the fact that 

the physiognomy of the sitter in the drawings closely corresponds 

to an anonymous portrait of Passitea formerly in 

the collection of Piero Misciattelli (Fig. 1). 5 

After his training with Arcangolo Salembeni, Vanni went to 

Bologna where he may have worked under Bartolommeo 

Passarotti. He absorbed the Carracci classicism, founded 

on the close study of nature, before travelling to Rome 

and entering the workshop of Giovanni de’ Vecchi. There 

he came also in the orbit of the leading Marchigian 

Fig. 1 

24

VESPASIANO STRADA 

Rome c. 1580– c. 1622 Rome 

9 

ECCE HOMO 

Black chalk, pen and brown ink and wash, heightened with 

white, indented and squared for transfer in black chalk, on 

brown prepared paper 

322 × 227 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Artaria & Co. (), Vienna (Lugt 2347) 

Private collection, London 

According to his biographer, Giovanni Baglione, Vespa - 

siano Strada was born in Rome to a Spanish father and 

died there at the age of only 36. Active as a painter both 

in Rome and central Italy, Strada worked also as a printmaker 

and leather decorator. His most important works in 

Rome include the frescoes in the Churches of Santa Maria 

in Aracoeli, San Giacomo degli Incurabili, Santa Maria 

Maddalena, and the cloisters of Sant’Onofrio al Gianicolo 

(further frescoes were in the now-lost Churches of Santa 

Marta and San Giacomo Maggiore). 

The present drawing may reflect some of the artist’s non- 

Italian origins, such as the highly expressive realism of the 

protagonists, and a training that certainly included the 

study of prints by Northern Renaissance masters. Strada’s 

authorship of the drawing appears particularly evident if 

one compares it with one of his rare connected drawings, 

his finished study in the Louvre for the fresco of the Martyr - 

dom of St. Feliciano in the Duomo at Foligno (Fig. 1). 1 

With the Louvre sheet, our drawing shares the same handling 

of the pen, the wash and the hatched, subtly applied 

white heightening. In addition, there are also strong affinities 

in the faces and figures. There are further close ties 

with the figures in the preparatory drawings for the 

lunettes in Sant’Onofrio al Gianicolo, one of the artist’s 

earliest known works, and above all with the drawing of 

the Coronation of the Virgin in the Albertina, Vienna. 2 

Strada treated the subject of the Ecce Homo also in two 

engravings. These differ in composition from our drawing 

but share the same, somewhat caricature-like, figure 

types. While it seems likely that the drawing was intended 

for an engraving (which may have remained unexecuted 

or is not otherwise recorded), the high degree of finish 

and the squaring for transfer do not exclude that it was 

made in view of a painting. 

In his combination of heterogeneous elements that are 

not always easy to pin down precisely, Strada reveals himself 

as a typical exponent of late Roman Mannerism. The 

influences, particularly notable in his engravings, of Dürer 

and Lucas van Leyden, and those of the Sienese painters 

such as Ventura Salimbeni and Francesco Vanni, are particularly 

strong in the present drawing. Its high degree of 

finish, typical of his paintings which are strongly influenced 

by the Zuccari brothers and the more contem - 

porary Cavalier d’Arpino, is even more apparent than in 

Strada’s other works and testifies to the great technical 

ability of an artist whose drawings are still rare. 

FRANCESCO GRISOLIA 

Fig. 1 

26

GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI, CALLED IL GUERCINO 

Cento 1591–1666 Bologna 

10 

A SIBYL READING 

Pen and brown ink 

248 × 207 mm 

PROVENANCE 

William Esdaille, 1758–1837 (Lugt 2617) 

Francois Alziari, Baron de Malaussena, Paris (Lugt 1887), his sale: 

Paris, 18–20 April 1866 

Jean Thesmar, Paris (Lugt 1544a), his sale: Paris, 9–10 June 1949 

(as “Le Guerchin, Femme lisant,” sold for 20.000 FF) 


Along with other female single figures, such as the Magdalen, 

Lucretia, or Cleopatra, Sibyls, both half or full-length, 

were an important subject in Guercino’s oeuvre. Having 

allegedly foretold the coming of Christ, these prophetesses 

were quickly adopted by the Church as pagan counterparts 

to the prophets in the Old Testament. And ever since 

Michelangelo’s famous depictions of Sibyls in the Sistine 

Chapel, this subject-matter enjoyed great popul arity 

among subsequent painters. In Guercino’s relatively early 

years, Sibyls feature prominently in the fresco decoration 

of the cupola of Piacenza cathedral (1626– 27) and its 

related drawings. 1 

subsequently by the publisher John Boydell, who reissued 

the prints in the 1790s in two folios of eighty-two 

and seventy-three plates, respectively. Our drawing was 

reproduced in the first volume, entitled Eighty-two Prints, 

Engraved by Bartolozzi, & c., from the original Pictures 

and Drawings of Guercino in the Collection of his Majesty, 

vol. 1 (London, n.d.). This volume included also a print by 

Bartolozzi after Guercino’s painting of the Libyan Sibyl 

(1651) purchased by King George III for the Royal Collection 

in the 1760s. 5 

From the later 1530s, the decade in which our drawing 

was likely made, 2 Guercino made a number of noble and 

elegant paintings of various of the twelve Sibyls, often 

showing them either writing down their prophecies (as in 

Guercino’s famous Persian Sibyl at the Pinacoteca Palatina, 

Rome, of 1647) or, as in our drawing or Guercino’s painting 

of the Samian Sibyl (1651) formerly in the Spencer 

collection at Althorp House and recently acquired by the 

National Gallery, London, in an almost ethereal state of 

deep engagement with the text before them. Resting 

their head, chin, or forehead, on one hand further accentuates 

the seriousness of their engagement and contemplation. 

3 

Our drawing served as a model for a copy preserved in 

the Royal Collection at Windsor, most likely made by 

Francesco Bartolozzi, who in turn made an engraving of it 

in reverse (Fig. 1). 4 From about 1764, after his arrival in 

London, Bartolozzi had made numerous engravings of 

drawings and paintings by Guercino and other masters in 

the Royal Collection. At first these prints were sold indiv - 

idually, but many of the copper plates were purchased 

Fig. 1 

28

FRA SEMPLICE DA VERONA 

Verona 1589– 1654 Rome 

11 

THE VIRGIN SEATED, 

TURNED TO THE RIGHT 

Red, black and white chalk on buff paper 

316 × 250 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Dr. C. R. Rudolf, his sale: London, Sotheby’s, 19 May 1977, lot 

75, illustrated (as “Emilian School, first half of the 17th Century”) 

Private collection, Italy 

LITERATURE 

M. Di Giampaolo, “Fra Semplice da Verona: ancora un disegno 

per la pala del Redentore,” in Arte veneta, 62, 2005, pp. 118–19, 

fig. 1 (reprinted in C. Garofalo, M. di Giampaolo, Scritti sul 

disegno italiano 1971– 2008, Florence, 2010, pp. 318–19) 

The late Mario Di Giampaolo was the first to identify this 

finished chalk drawing, formerly thought to be by an Emi - 

lian artist of the seventeenth century, as a study for the 

Virgin in Fra Semplice’s altarpiece of Beato Felice receiving 

the Christ Child from the Virgin in the Church of the 

Santissimo Redentore at Venice (Fig. 1). The altarpiece 

was painted in circa 1627– 30 on the occasion of the beatification 

of another Capuchin friar, Felix of Cantalice 

(1515–1587) by Pope Urban VIII on 1 October 1625. Saint 

Felix was the first friar of his order to be beatified (and 

later, in 1712 under Pope Clement XI, the first to be 

canonised), and it was therefore perhaps no surprise that 

Fig. 1 

one of his fellow friars, who happened to be a leading 

painter of his time, was chosen for this commission. The 

altarpiece shows the most notable moment in Saint Felix’s 

life, a vision during which he received the Christ Child 

from the Virgin. This subject quickly evolved into the 

single most important one in the Frate’s oeuvre. After the 

beatification of St. Felix, the artist visited numerous 

Capuchin monasteries which he supplied with paintings of 

that subject. 1 

Several drawings related to the figure of the Virgin in the 

Redentore altarpiece survive. Our drawing, executed in 

coloured chalks, the artist’s preferred technique for figure 

studies, comes closest to the figure of the Virgin in the 

painting. Another study in the same technique, formerly on 

the art market in New York, 2 shows the Virgin in a similar 

position to ours, though more upright and with a slightly 

different solution to the draperies. The drawing was pos - 

sibly made at an earlier stage in the design process. A third 

drawing was formerly in the collection of Janos Scholz, 

New York. 3 This is executed in the same technique and 

shows the Virgin in a similar position, with both arms outstretched, 

and ready to hand over the Christ Child to Saint 

Felix. In addition to our drawing Di Giampaolo published 

an oil bozzetto for the painting (private collection), which 

corresponds in most parts with the altarpiece. 4 

Although Fra Semplice’s painted oeuvre had long been 

well established, he was not identified as a draughtsman 

until 1992, when David Lachenmann was able to connect 

two drawings (in the same technique as ours), with specific 

figures in two of the Frate’s best known paintings. 5 On that 

basis numerous other drawings were subsequently added 

to Fra Semplice’s drawings oeuvre. Roberto Contini published 

a significant group of eight coloured chalk studies of 

fellow Capuchin monks, from the Kupferstichkabinett, 

Berlin, some of which had been traditionally catalogued as 

by Barocci, a slightly earlier master of the coloured chalk 

whose work Fra Semplice certainly studied in Rome. 6 Comparable 

to Barocci, many of the Frate’s chalk drawings are 

detailed studies of heads (often portraits of fellow friars) or 

figures. His pen-and-ink drawings have been virtually 

unknown. More recently, however, a clearer picture of Fra 

Semplice’s pen style, which reveals a strong Venetic in - 

fluence, has emerged, as both Roberto Contini 7 and Stefan 

Morét 8 have published a number of previously unidentified 

composition studies from Berlin and the Martin-von-Wagner-Museum 

at Würzburg. Several of these are variations 

on our subject of the Vision of St. Felix, further testifying to 

the important place this scene held in the Frate’s oeuvre. 

30

SIMONE CANTARINI, CALLED IL PESARESE 

Pesaro 1612–1648 Verona 

12 

RINALDO LEAVING ARMIDA, CALLED 

TO DUTY BY CARLO AND UBALDO 

Inscribed, lower margin, Simon Pesarese 

Red chalk 

200 × 260 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Colonel Henry Stephen Olivier (1796–1866), Lugt 1373 

The emergence of this drawing is of particular importance 

for several reasons. It is a wonderful addition to Cantarini’s 

corpus of drawings. Its composition and extremely fluid 

handling of the chalk show off the delicate and elegant 

qualities of his more mature style. Furthermore, it sheds 

new light on a small group of known but thus far partly 

incorrectly identified drawings made in the same iconographic 

context. Here, I would like to thank Guido Arbizzoni, 

who kindly alerted me to several illustrations based 

upon the same Canto, including the famous illustration by 

Bernardo Castello 1 of the scene taking place immediately 

prior to that in the present drawing (before Armida faints), 

and another from an edition published in Florence in 1825 

(Fig. 1), which corresponds so closely to Cantarini’s that 

one might suspect its author, the painter Carlo Falcini, 

had knowledge of such a project by the artist, perhaps a 

set of paintings (fully reflected in the series of prints), 

which today is all but dispersed, if indeed ever executed. 2 

Depicting a dramatic scene from Torquato Tasso’s epic 

poem, Gerusalemme liberata, first published in 1581, this 

beautiful drawing shows Rinaldo, Christian soldier in the 

First Crusade, abandoning the Saracen sorceress Armida 

after being called to his war duties by Carlo and Ubaldo. 

More precisely, it shows the moment when Armida, having 

first begged and then threatened Rinaldo, faints as he 

leaves her behind (Book 16, 59–60). 

There are three further drawings that relate to the same 

moment in the design process. Their compositions oscillate 

between the moment when Carlo and Ubaldo try to 

extract Rinaldo from Armida, who uses all her magic to 

make him stay, and the subsequent moment, as seen in 

the present drawing, when Armida, at long last defeated 

by Rinaldo’s sense of duty, passes out. Two red chalk 

drawings by Cantarini, a sketchier one at the Museum 

Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, 3 and a more worked-up one at 

the Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (Fig. 2), 4 show the 

first moment, while a red chalk drawing in the Staats - 

galerie, Stuttgart, which is directly related to ours, shows the 

second moment. 5 The Stuttgart drawing is more sketchily 

executed than ours and its composition is in reverse, 

showing the moment of Armida’s fainting, with Rinaldo in 

the centre, listening perplexed to his companions’ calls. 

The overall composition of our drawing is extremely close 

to that at Rio de Janeiro: the three warriors are arranged 

in a similar way and both drawings show the putto hovering 

above and breaking his bow. The artist was evidently 

working out the composition, trying out different poses 

and movements probably for a work for which the preferred 

scene was yet to be chosen, if indeed Cantarini was 

actually working on a series of paintings or prints inspired 

by the famous poem. Unfortunately, while there are both 

extant and documented works by Cantarini based on Ari - 

osto, such as Angelica and Medoro (Reggio Emilia, Credito 

Emiliano) or Ruggero liberating Angelica, 6 to date the 

present drawing and its related sheets are the only known 

works based upon Tasso’s poem. 

ANNA MARIA AMBROSINI MASSARI 

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 

32

ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT 

Gornichem 1566– 1651 Utrecht 

13 

FOUR STUDIES OF FEMALE HEADS 

(RECTO) 

FIGURE STUDIES 

(VERSO) 

Numbered, upper right (recto), 58; and upper right (verso), 60 

Red chalk, pen and brown ink, heightened with white 

165 × 158 mm 

PROVENANCE 

André Giroux, his sale: Paris, 18-19 April 1904, part of lot 175 

Abraham Bloemaert received his artistic training in 

Utrecht and Paris but, unlike many of his contemporaries, 

never travelled to Italy. Indeed, apart from two years in 

Amsterdam, he worked in Utrecht from 1583 until his 

death. Together with Cornelis van Haarlem and Joachim 

Wtewael, Bloemaert was one of the last major exponents 

of the Northern Mannerist tradition. A career of some sixty 

years saw the artist complete around two-hundred paintings, 

including landscape, history, and genre subjects. He 

was also an extremely gifted draughtsman, praised as 

such by his biographer Karel van Mander, among others. 

Bloemaert’s greatest legacy was his Konstryk Tekenboek 

of 166 engravings made after his drawings by his son 

Frederick. These were intended as a teaching aid for 

future artists to study and emulate. Although model 

books of various types of drawing had a long history in 

sixteenth-century Italy, none existed in the Low Countries 

prior to the publication of Abraham’s Tekenboek. 

The recto of the present sheet contains a number of 

studies that reappear in the so-called Cambridge Album, 

which contains Bloemaert’s final drawings for the Tekenboek. 

1 The head on the top left of our drawing appears on 

the right of sheet 13 in the Cambridge Album (Fig. 1), 2 

while the head on the top right is replicated on the top 

left of sheet 18. 3 

The studies of hands on the verso relate to Bloemaert’s 

painting of Saint Veronica, now-lost but known by an engraving, 

in reverse, by Jacob Matham (Fig. 2). 4 The hands 

of the saint holding the Sudarium correspond precisely 

with those in our sheet. The head on the lower right of the 

recto of our sheet may also relate to that of Saint Veronica. 

Matham’s engraving was published in 1605 and the inscription 

A. Bloemaeert pinxit along the lower margin 

confirms that it was made after a painting. The print’s date 

provides a terminus ante for our studies while the date 

of circa 1591 for the partial watermark would indicate a 

terminus post. 5 

Fig. 1 

Our drawing formed part of the so-called Giroux Album, 

assembled by Hendrick Bloemaert, the artist’s son. Generally 

double-sided and drawn in red and white chalk on 

light brown paper, drawings from this album can be 

3 

34

ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT 

3 

13 

identified by the distinctive numbering in pen and brown 

ink in the upper right corner. They belonged to the 

painter, photographer, and art dealer, André Giroux 

(1801–1879) and were dispersed at his sale in Paris in 1904. 

Compar able drawings from that album are in the Musée 

des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, 6 the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los 

Angeles, 7 and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 8 

Fig. 2 

36

CHARLES DE LA FOSSE 

Paris 1636–1716 Paris 

14 

STUDIES FOR MINERVA AND 

OTHER OLYMPIAN GODS 

Numbered on the verso, 10 

Red, black and white chalk on buff paper 

382 × 270 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, New York, 1967 

Mrs. Betty Reitman, Montreal 

EXHIBITIONS 

New York, Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, Selected Drawings, 

1967, cat. no. 20a, pl. 25 

Ottawa, National Gallery of Art, Canada, Watteau and his 

World, 2000 (ex-catalogue) 

LITERATURE 

E.A. Standen, “Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A Gobelins Tapestry 

Series,” in Metropolitan Museum Journal, XXIII, 1988, 

pp. 159–60, fig. 21 

A. Chéreau, Charles de la Fosse et le Grand Décor (1636–1716), 

doctoral thesis, Université de Paris IV, 1992, cat. no. 47, illustrated 

P.J. Fidler, “A drawing by Charles de Fosse identified,” in 

Source Notes in the History of Art, XIV, no. 4, 1995, pp. 34–38 

C. Gustin-Gomez, Charles de Fosse, 1636–1716, catalogue 

raisonné, 2 vols., Dijon, 2006, II, p.263, cat. no. D198, illustrated 

Crozat’s sumptuous residence in the rue de Richelieu bet - 

ween 1704 and 1707 but now destroyed. 2 In fact, de la 

Fosse treated this subject twice. His first commission was in 

1690– 92 when the I st Duke of Montagu, former British 

Ambassador to France, commissioned him to paint the 

Triumph of Minerva among the Assembly of the Gods as 

the ceiling decoration for his Grand Salon in Montagu House, 

Bloomsbury, also now destroyed. 3 There is a sketch for the 

Crozat ceiling in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and a 

related sketch (Fig. 1), both of which show Minerva seated 

on clouds with Mercury at her side, Apollo behind her and 

Diana reclining to her right below. 4 It seems possible therefore 

that our drawing belongs to the early stage in the design 

of this project. His use of trois crayons to create light 

and volume anticipates the graphic style of Watteau who 

lived with de la Fosse in Crozat’s residence from 1706. It 

was on the advice of de la Fosse that Watteau was commissioned 

to paint the Four Seasons for Crozat’s dining room. 

Charles de la Fosse was the most important decorative 

painter in France at the end of the seventeenth century. 

His two most famous projects were those for the Dome 

des Invalides and the Chapel and Grands Appartements 

at Versailles. Clémentine Gustin-Gomez suggests that this 

elegant sheet with its artfully arranged figure studies of 

gods and goddesses sitting or kneeling on the clouds is a 

design for a grandiose decorative scheme. The goddess 

Minerva with her helmet and lance is prominent top left 

with a male figure at her side, perhaps Mercury. Edith 

Standen suggested that the figure bottom right might 

represent Diana as she is closely related to the goddess in 

de la Fosse’s Rest of Diana in the Hermitage although 

in that painting the figure is reversed. 1 Since none of the 

figures except for Minerva bear their attributes, they cannot 

be identified with certainty. 

According to Gustin-Gomez, Colin Bailey proposed that 

our drawing could be related to de la Fosse’s Birth of Minerva, 

painted in the vault of the Grande Galerie in Pierre 

Fig. 1 

38

LUDOVICO GIMIGNANI 

Rome 1643–1697 Zagarolo 

15 

GOD THE FATHER AND THE ALTAR OF 

THE EUCHARIST, WITH SAINT MICHAEL 

VANQUISHING SATAN BELOW 

Red chalk, red and brown wash, heightened with white 

380 × 280 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Private collection, Paris 

This large drawing, executed in a mixed technique of 

brush with red and brown wash, heightened with white 

over red chalk, could well be a design for an oval altarpiece. 

The unusual oval shape makes a connection with a 

ceiling fresco in a side chapel somewhat less likely. It is 

possible, however, that the drawing is a study for a ceiling 

fresco in a sacristy. No such work by Lodovico Gimignani, 

however, has thus far come to light. Yet his extant depictions 

of Saint Michael fighting devils show angels and 

demons in extremely similar poses. One might think, for 

instance, of Lodovico’s altarpiece of Saint Michael in the 

church of S. Andrea delle Fratte, Rome, which he provided 

with several paintings in the 1680s. A quick sketch in 

the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome, belongs in this 

context. 

Its close affinity in style and technique to two drawings 

given to Lodovico in the British Museum is evident (Fig. 1), 

even though the use of red chalk and red-brown wash is 

rather infrequent in Gimignani’s drawing oeuvre. The 

majority of his drawings preserved at the Istituto Nazionale 

per la Grafica in Rome are in black chalk and, if wash is applied, 

it is mostly grey. But the forcefully applied white 

gouache, which is here somewhat reminiscent of Passeri’s 

technique, can be found on occasion, such as in the context 

of his drawings and paintings for S. Silvestro in Capite 

in Rome. These are mostly drawings from his most produc - 

tive period, during which he executed numerous private 

paintings commissions as well as frescoes for churches 

and houses in Rome, before his unexpected death put a 

sudden end to all his artistic activity. 

URSULA VERENA FISCHER PACE 

Fig. 1 

40

NICCOLÒ RICCIOLINI 

Rome 1687–1772 Rome 

16 

THE VESTAL VIRGIN TUCCIA 

PROVING HER INNOCENCE 

Black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey and brown wash, 

with brown ink framing lines 

370 × 510 mm 

PROVENANCE 


Considered by Johann Joachim Winckelmann a “painter 

of great talent and highly gifted,” and by the historian Luigi 

Lanzi a “good draughtsman,” Niccolò Ricciolini was a 

leading member of a late Roman baroque dynasty of 

painters. 1 Among the most highly esteemed artists of his 

generation, he worked also as an engraver, sculptor, and 

architectural scholar. He was the son and pupil of the 

painter Michelangelo Ricciolini, and father of Michelangelo 

Maria Ricciolini. He received numerous prestigious commissions 

in Rome, most notably for St. Peter’s, as well as in 

various other locations in Lazio, Tuscany, Umbria, and the 

Marches. His patrons included both religious orders and 

the leading families of the period, such as the Albani, 

Barberini, Colonna, Orsini, and Ottoboni families. In 

1702– 03, aged 15–16, he won three competitions at the 

Accademia di San Luca, testifying to his precocious talent 

as a draughtsman. In 1719 he was elected a Virtuoso at 

the Pantheon and in 1721 an Academician of San Luca. 

Fig. 1 

His relatively rare drawings are preserved in several major 

public collections, such as the Uffizi, the British Museum, 

Windsor Castle, the Accademia di San Luca, the Istituto 

Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome, the Metropolitan Museum 

of Art, and the Martin-von-Wagner-Museum at Würz - 

burg. 2 While some of the drawings in these collections are 

connected with known paintings by the artist others have 

been attributed to him on the basis of style. The present 

drawing belongs to the latter category and will be 

published by the present author in a forthcoming essay 

dedicated to Ricciolini’s drawings. 

Ricciolini’s pen style is fairly easily recognizable, most 

notably by its segmented outlines, clearly visible in the 

figures and draperies, the faces, objects and architectural 

elements. This characteristic technique is complemented, 

more in the non-religious than religious subjects, by 

strongly Cortonesque compositions, which, however, 

neither betray the classical and enduring influence of 

Carlo Maratti, the teacher of the father Michelangelo, 

something that is evident in all of Niccolò’s works. 

Different from his early works preserved at the Accademia 

di San Luca, this drawing belongs to the artist’s maturity, 

datable to the 1760s or 1770s. This is evident by comparison 

with two drawings from the Uffizi, thus far unpublished, 

signed and dated 1763 and 1764, respectively, one 

of which is a study for the painting in the Sala dei Fasti 

Colonna in the Palazzo Barberini, Rome. 3 The anatomies 

and shape of the figures, their gestures and expressions, 

and the manner in which they are arranged correspond 

closely with those in this drawing. The broken, and often 

reinforced, pen lines, the shadows in wash and the fine 

under drawing in black chalk reveal the same hand, as 

does the careful disposition of the figures and the overall 

composition, which appears crowded but where every 

element supports the narrative. Another closely related 

sheet is at Würzburg, showing Cincinnatus leaving the 

3 

42

NICCOLÒ RICCIOLINI 

3 

16 

Plow for the Roman dictatorship (Fig. 1). 4 The composition 

of the present drawing also recalls those of other well 

known paintings by the artist, such as the Resurrection 

of Lazarus, today at the Museo del Barocco Romano at 

Ariccia. 5 

In this drawing, Ricciolini tried his hand at a relatively rare 

though not unknown subject in Italian Renaissance and 

Baroque art, with extant depictions by Mantegna and 

Polidoro da Caravaggio, up to Maratti and his contemporary 

Trevisani, who exerted some influence over our artist 

and who was also the uncle of Ricciolini’s wife. The legendary 

Tuccia, priestess of Vesta the goddess of the 

hearth, home and family, was accused of breaking her vow 

of chastity. Her story is reported by various Roman authors, 

among which were Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Livy, 

Valerius Maximus, Pliny, and Plutarch. The punishment for 

this type of crime for the Vestal virgins, who could not be 

put to death by mere human hands, was for them to be 

buried alive in a grave and left to die. Tuccia, however, 

was offered to prove her Innocence by completing an 

impossible task, to fetch water from the Tiber in a sieve 

and bring it to the temple of Vesta. 

The drawing shows the moment when Tuccia succeeds at 

carrying water in a sieve to the temple, to the great surprise 

not only of the high priest on the left but also to the 

men, women, and Roman soldiers around her. The cult of 

Vesta was closely tied to the foundation of Rome, according 

to which the mother of Romulus and Remus, Rea 

Silvia, was a Vestal virgin at Albalonga. That explains why 

the drawing shows in the foreground, in addition to the 

allegory of the River Tiber on the right, the two twins playing 

with the she-wolf. Tuccia represents the symbol of 

chastity, and is shown as such in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia. 

Works of this subject were often linked to a female member 

of the patron’s family, or otherwise included in more 

comprehensive cycles of Roman history. 

FRANCESCO GRISOLIA 

44

GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO 

Venice 1696–1770 Madrid 

17 HEAD OF AN ORIENTAL 

Pen and brown ink and wash 

235 × 184 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Frantz Funck-Brentano (1862–1947), his sale: Paris, Drouot, 

29 April 1921, lot 127, illustrated 

Adrien Fauchier-Magnan, Neuilly-sur-Seine (1873– 1965) 

Charles Slatkin Galleries, New York 


EXHIBITIONS 

New York, Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, Selected Drawings, n.d. 

(c. 1967), cat. no. 11, pl. 9 and cover 

Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, and elsewhere, 18th Century 

Venetian Art in Canadian Collections, 1989– 90, cat. no. 56, 

illustrated (cat. by G. Knox) 

George Knox considers this drawing to be the starting 

point for a lost painting by Tiepolo, Head of an Oriental, 

which is known from a copy by Battista’s son, Lorenzo, in 

the Pinacoteca Malaspina at Pavia (Fig. 1). 1 Several further 

paintings, and a drawing by Lorenzo at the Schlossmu - 

seum, Weimar, 2 show variations on this composition. 

There are some differences between our drawing and the 

Pavia painting in the way the cloak has been elaborated 

and the manner in which the turban is tied. Most significant 

however, is the artist’s treatment of the sitter’s beautiful 

white beard which fills the page in the drawing but which 

is dark and cropped in the painting. According to Knox 

both the picture and this drawing relate also to one of 

Domenico Tiepolo’s etchings Old Man with small Turban 

in his famous 1774 series of heads, or Raccolta di Teste 

(I, 6), all of which, according to Aldo Rizzi, were based on 

Giambattista’s designs. 3 

This drawing belonged to two eminent French collectors. 

Frantz Funck-Brentano (1862–1947) was a French historian 

and prolific writer. He was born in the castle of Munsbach 

in Luxembourg and in 1885 was appointed curator of the 

Bibliotheque de l’Arsénal. He specialised in the history of 

the Ancien Régime. Adrien Fauchier-Magnan (1873–1965) 

was a historian and biographer. He was also a talented 

tennis player who participated in the 1900 Paris Olympics. 

He formed an important collection of Italian and French 

drawings, the majority of which were sold at Sotheby’s in 

1935. The sale included important sheets by Watteau, 

Boucher, Canaletto and Giambattista and Domenico 

Tiepolo including a significant group of Punchinello drawings. 

Many were purchased by the renowned collector 

Count Antoine Seilern for his home at Princes Gate and 

were subsequently bequeathed to the Courtauld Gallery. 

Knox dates our drawing to the 1740s. This is the period 

when Tiepolo was working on his two series of etchings, 

the Vari Capricci and the Scherzi di Fantasia, and both sets 

are peopled with these mysterious philosophers, bearded 

Orientals and magicians. At this time Tiepolo’s graphic 

style becomes freer and more dramatic. In the Tiepolo Bicentenary 

Exhibition catalogue of 1970 Agnes Mongan 

summed it up as follows: “Giambattista, in his wash drawings 

above all, achieved a new abstraction of illusionism 

through physical means that were direct, immaculate, and 

apparently effortless.” 4 

Fig. 1 

46

JOHANN WOLFGANG BAUMGARTNER 

Ebbs 1702 –1761 Augsburg 

18 

JONAH PREACHING AT NINEVEH 

Pen and brown ink, black and grey wash, heightened with 

white, on blue prepared paper, with black ink framing lines 

180 × 291 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Dietzen collection, Cologne, their sale: Cologne, Heberle, 

14 February 1910 (according to an inscription on the backing) 

Heinrich Conrad, Essen (1868–1925) 

The present drawing shows a rare scene from the Old 

Testament’s Book of Jonah. After Jonah refuses Jehova’s 

command to proclaim God’s judgement on the city of 

Nineveh he tries to flee by ship, which, in the ensuing 

storm caused by God, nearly sinks. The ship’s crew quickly 

identify Jonah as the source of their distress and throw 

him overboard. Swallowed by a whale he spends three 

days and nights praying until he is finally spewed out onto 

the shore. Jehovah orders Jonah again to remind the 

Ninevites of their city’s impending destruction within forty 

days. Overcome with fear and in need of no further admonishment 

from Jonah, the Ninevites – led by the King 

and his courtiers – repent and do penance. 

The present drawing shows that last scene with the king in 

the centre and Jonah, his back turned to the beholder, 

proclaiming his message to the Ninevites. The dramatic 

encounter of the two protagonists takes place just outside 

the city walls, allowing Baumgartner to combine the landscape 

with the impressive skyline of the legendary city of 

Nineveh. This includes the massive round tower of the city 

wall and an array of magnificent palaces, towers, and pyramid-like 

structures, all conjured up in Baumgartner’s 

imagination. Evidently, he had little or no knowledge of 

the capital of the Assyrian Empire – it had been destroyed 

in pre-Christian times – but this type of highly imaginative 

architectural vocabulary played an important role in the 

reverse paintings on glass that the artist had first made at 

Salzburg. He was to produce these in greater numbers in 

Augsburg after 1733, basing them on images in Melchior 

Küsell’s Iconographia. Baumgartner used similar motifs in 

his drawings, achieving rich tonal effects by his use of blue 

paper. 

serving as an additional medium, adds depth to the composition, 

while the white heightening further enhances the 

strong chiaroscuro effect. The painterly handling of the 

drawing media is a distinctive feature in Baumgartner’s 

oeuvre, while his use of blue tinted paper is unique in 

Southern German Rococo draughtsmanship. 

The black ink framing lines, too, are often found in Baumgartner’s 

drawings. They emphasise both the picture-like 

qualities of the drawing and underline their high degree 

of finish. As can be found in many of his drawings, part of 

the line is drawn over the outer edge of the image. The 

sheets were evidently cut down from larger formats before 

the framing lines were added. No engraving or painting 

of the subject is recorded. 

PETER PRANGE 

While the main protagonists are outlined with the pen, 

their forms are modelled with the brush and wash, creating 

strong contrasts of light and shadow. The blue paper, 

48

JEAN-MARTIAL FRÉDOU DE LA BRETONNIERE 

Fontenay Saint-Pere 1710– 1795 Versailles 

19 

PORTRAIT OF JOSEPH-VALENTIN-BLAISE 

MARTY 

Signed and dated, lower right, Fredou 1753 

Coloured chalks and pastel 

380 × 270 mm 

PROVENANCE 

By descent from the sitter in an English private collection 

Frédou was born in Fontenay-Saint-Père on the outskirts 

of Paris. In 1735 he married the wealthy and influential 

Adelaide Séguier de Liancourt, and in 1755 Jacques- 

André Portail, the garde des tableaux du roi appointed 

him peintre du cabinet du roi. In 1757 Frédou was employed 

to design two perspective panels for the Dauphin’s 

garden at Versailles and in 1761 was commissioned to 

produce eleven portraits of the royal children for Madame 

la Dauphine, Marie-Josèphe de Saxe. The most famous of 

these, his touching portrait of Louis-Joseph-Xavier de 

France, Duc de Bourgogne, aged nine, at Versailles exists 

in many versions. 1 His great success as a court painter led 

to his appointment in 1776 as premier peintre de Monsieur 

(painter to the Comte de Provence, brother of Louis XVl). 

1748), and the Portrait of Monsieur Perrier (signed and 

dated 1749). 5 All three are of similar size and date. The 

sitters are portrayed looking relaxed and informally 

dressed suggesting they may even have been friends of 

the artist or perhaps formed part of his inner circle. They 

admirably fulfil Bénézit’s verdict on the artist, “Frédou est 

un charmant artiste en qui se retrouvent les plus aimables 

qualités du XVIIIe siècle; il mérite de retenir toute l’attention 

des amateurs.” 

In mid-eighteenth century Paris and at the court of Versailles 

in particular, pastel portraiture was at the height of 

fashion. Its earliest exponent was the brilliantly gifted 

Quentin de la Tour whose portraits Frédou had copied 

early in his career. As a talented pastellist, Frédou was 

much in demand even before his royal appointment. He 

used a variety of styles, from the informally sketched portrait 

drawn from life to the sophisticated creation for an 

important sitter. He also employed different media for his 

portrait drawings, sanguine, pastel and trois crayons and 

sometimes a combination of all three. In the royal account 

books, his pastels are in fact described as études dessinées 

aux trois crayons melées de pastel. His sitters included 

members of the French aristocracy, such as the Marquis 

de la Roquette, 2 administrators of the royal household, 

musicians and fellow artists such as Jacques-André Portail 

whose penetrating portrait is at Versailles. 3 A famous 

example of his highly finished pastel technique is his portrait 

of the beautiful Madame de Villemomble (signed and 

dated 1756), the mistress of the Duc d’Orléans, in the 

Louvre. 4 Our portrait drawing, certainly done from life, 

may be compared to two similar sheets formerly on the art 

market, the Portrait of a young Man (signed and dated 

50

CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET 

Avignon 1714–1789 Paris 

20 

VIEW OF THE BAY OF POSILLIPO 

Inscribed in pen and brown ink, vue de pousilipo 

Pen and grey ink and wash, over black chalk, on two joined 

sheets of paper 

450 × 707 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Part of an album of drawings probably compiled in Vienna 

in the early 19th century 

Antoine-Augustin Renouard (1765–1853), his sale: Paris, 

20 November–20 December 1854, lot 628, purchased by 

Louis Potier, Paris 

Sale: Versailles, 13 March 1966, lot 170 

LITERATURE 

P. Conisbee, Claude-Joseph Vernet, exhibition catalogue, 

Kenwood House, London, 1976, under cat. no. 59 

This beautiful, large-scale sheet comes from an album of 

fifty-three drawings by Vernet probably compiled in Vienna 

between 1820 and 1830. The album later belonged to 

the French publisher and bibliophile Antoine-Augustin 

Renou ard (1765–1853). Renouard was famous for his elegant 

publications which were often illustrated by contemporary 

French artists such as Moreau and Prud’hon. Louis 

Potier, an antiquarian bookseller from the quai Malaquais, 

purchased the album at Renouard’s posthumous sale. It 

was dispersed at auction at Versailles in 1966. 

The drawings in the album were mostly of sites in and 

around Rome and Naples and were laid on mounts sometimes 

inscribed in a German hand, Vernett. Some also 

bore Roman numerals in the artist’s own handwriting 

together with inscriptions. Sheets from the album are now 

found in major European and American museums including 

the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1 and the Detroit In - 

stitute of Arts. 2 Another album from the same Viennese 

source and bearing similar inscriptions and Roman numerals 

is in the Albertina, Vienna. 3 This album contains nineteen 

drawings and was originally in the collection of the 

Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria (1793–1875). It was gifted 

to the Albertina in 1919. It is clear from the single Viennese 

source for both albums that at some point they must have 

both been in the same collection and may have been 

compiled from the 700 drawings included in Vernet’s 

posthumous sale in 1789. 

Vernet had left his native Avignon for Rome in 1734 under 

the protection of the Marquis de Caumont and remained 

there for twenty years. Although he did not study at the 

Academie de France in Rome, he was encouraged to go 

on drawing expeditions into the Campagna and beyond, 

by its director, Nicolas Vleughels. Vleughels was a keen 

landscape draughtsman who no doubt urged young 

artists to follow in the footsteps of the great French landscape 

artist, Claude Lorrain, a century earlier. 

During his Italian sojourn, Vernet frequently visited Naples 

and its coastline was a constant source of inspiration to 

him. Conisbee has suggested that the drawings in these 

two albums date from 1750 and may have been produced 

on one of the artist’s sketching tours around Rome and 

Naples between May and October of that year when there 

is a convenient break in his Roman account book. 

Our view of Posillipo from the sea must have been a 

favourite of Vernet’s as two comparable views have appeared 

on the market within the last decade. 4 Two views 

of the entrance to the grotto at Posillipo, also from the 

same album were also formerly on the art market. 5 

Writing in La maison d’un artiste in 1881, Edmond de 

Goncourt may well have had a sheet such as ours in mind 

when he summarised the character of Vernet’s drawings: 

“De tranquilles et serieux dessins, qui ont rompu avec le 

tapage pittoresque de l’ecole paysagiste de Boucher: des 

effets larges, de grandes lumieres dormantes, le com - 

mence ment de l’enveloppement d’un paysage par un 

atmosphere.” 

52

PIETRO GIACOMO PALMIERI 

Bologna 1737–1804 Turin 

21 

A CAMP OF CAVALIERS 

Pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash 

329 × 462 mm 

and 

CAVALIERS ON THE MOVE 

Pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash 

324 × 466 mm 

LITERATURE 

C. Travisonni, “Du Tillot, Valdrè e Palmieri: un collezionista e i 

suoi pittori tra Parma e Parigi,” in C. Mambriani, G. Fiaccadori, 

A. Malinverni (eds.), Guglielmo Du Tillot e i ministri delle arti 

nell’Europa dei Lumi, proceedings of the conference, Parma, 

25–27 October 2012, in press 

Executed in circa 1773–74. 

In these two highly finished works Pietro Giacomo The present drawings are close in subject matter and style 

Palmieri, draughtsman, printmaker, and painter, shows off to two drawings formerly on the art market. 3 Together 

one of his specialities, the making of drawings in emulation 

of printmaking techniques. This is particularly evident Simonini, whom Palmieri knew well from his days in 

they defer to the painter and printmaker Francesco 

in his sharp use of the pen in combination with the diluted Bologna. As we know from the sources, the former prime 

wash to define the shades, which evokes the effects of an minister of Parma, Guillaume Du Tillot, whom Palmieri 

etching with aquatint. This taste for swapping the media followed to Paris in January 1773, had asked the artist to 

and techniques goes back to the time of his early artistic make drawings of paintings by various artists, including 

formation under Donato Creti, Ludovico Mattioli, Ercole Simonini. 4 

Graziani, and Gaetano Gandolfi. Indeed it has been noted 

that the drawing style of these artists, most notably their Although we cannot be absolutely certain that the present 

use of fine cross hatching, derives from (or in any way drawings were made for Du Tillot (who died in 1774), the 

is closely linked to) the techniques used in their print - rendering of the clouds and sky in the manner of Claudemaking. 

1 This optical trick, enhanced in Palmieris’ case, by Joseph Vernet (1714–1789), an artist whom Palmieri had 

his use of framing lines and the ad dition of a prominently studied closely in the 1770s and who was also admired by 

placed signature (as one would expect in a print) was no Du Tillot, clearly points to the artist’s French period. Such 

doubt very much appreciated by collectors and connoisseurs 

(whom it was ultimately made for). It also remains a course of his long period at Turin, Palmieri abandoned his 

dating may be further corroborated by the fact that, in the 

highly characteristic and constant feature found throughout 

his entire career. 2 wash, as is evident in these sheets, in favour of a rather 

light and fluent handling of the pen and application of the 

heavy pen work and watercolour. 

CHIARA TRAVISONNI 

54

JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD 

Grasse 1732– 1806 Paris 

22 

PORTRAIT D’ELISABETH-JULIE-PERRETTE 

LYONNARD BERGERET, CALLED BETZY 

(1782–1797) 

Black and red chalk 

121 mm (diameter) 

PROVENANCE 

Sale: Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 21 January 1970, lot 3 



LITERATURE 

E. Darras, “La Famille Bergeret, de L’Isle Adam et de Frouville,” 

in Mémoires de la Société Historique et Archéologique de 

Pointoise, XLII, 1933, pp. 58–92 

A. Ananoff, L’oeuvre dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Paris, 

1970, IV, cat. no. 2036, fig. 553 

P. Rosenberg, Fragonard, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Galeries 

Nationales du Grand Palais, and elsewhere, 1988, p. 555 

M. Roland-Michel, “Sur sept medallions de Fragonard,” in 

M.T. Caracciolo (ed.), Hommage au Dessin: Mélanges offerts 

à Roseline Bacou, Paris, 1998, pp. 439–49 

Fragonard made approximately a dozen medallion portraits, 

informally posed and drawn in black chalk. 1 He seems 

to have reserved this intimate format for likenesses of his 

own family and the circle around the Bergeret family, his 

friends and patrons. They do not form a series, but were 

executed at different times in the years circa 1778– 90. 

The sitter in this charming portrait is a child of seven or 

eight years old. Given her birthdate in 1782, the image 

must have been drawn circa 1789. Although the identifi - 

cation of “Betzy” has been questioned, 2 her relationship 

to the Bergerets can be confirmed by evidence found in 

an overlooked article published by Eugène Darras in 

1933. 3 Betzy was the adopted daughter of Pierre-Jacques 

Bergeret (1742–1807), younger son of Fragonard’s great 

collector and patron Jacques-Onézyme Bergeret de 

Grancourt (1715–1785). Having no children of his own, 

Pierre-Jacques formally adopted her on the same date 

that he married her mother, Catherine-Julie-Xavière 

Poisson-Lachabeaussière on 11 October 1796. According 

to information in the Darras article, Catherine’s parents, 

like Pierre-Jacques, were also residents of Cassan, near 

Châteaupré, 4 suggesting that the families knew each 

other years before the marriage, and before Catherine 

and her daughter are documented as part of Bergeret’s 

household in 1794. Sadly, Betzy’s life was tragically short. 

Her death was recorded by Bergeret on 16 September 

1797 in Châteaupré where she was buried. 

Among the known roundel portraits, only three contain 

touches of red chalk for a naturalistic skin tone. In addition 

to the present work, there is a self-portrait of Fragonard 

showing him aged and sad, 5 and therefore probably 

dating from circa 1789 when he was still at Cassan following 

the death of his daughter in 1788. The other portrait, 

cut into an oval format, depicts a woman wearing a simple 

cap over her natural hair. 6 Could this be Betzy’s mother 

The connections between Fragonard and Bergeret père 

and fils are well known. The elder Bergeret had collected 

works by Fragonard since the Salon of 1767 and later had 

sponsored their travels to Italy and beyond in 1773–74. 

The younger Bergeret was a member of the party, and 

was keenly interested in architecture. Upon their return to 

Paris, the elder Bergeret assumed ownership of all of the 

artist’s drawings. His reasoning was that he had invited M. 

and Mme. Fragonard as his guide and guest, and paid all 

expenses. A legal case, waged by the artist, was finally 

settled with Bergeret having to pay 30,000 livres to keep 

the drawings. 7 The quarrel and subsequent break in 

friendship was only repaired through the efforts of Pierre- 

Jacques who had remained in touch with Fragonard. 

In 1778, Pierre-Jacques established his own household 

following his purchase of property from his cousin Alexandre-Pierre-Nicolas 

de Cassan, land of the Seigneurie de 

Châteaupré and the domain of Cassan. Over the next 

fourteen years he designed and had built numerous 

improvements, including an extensive park. 8 It was to 

Châteaupré, near the town of L’Isle Adam, that Pierre- 

Jacques regularly welcomed his uncle, the abbé de Saint- 

Non, and the Fragonard family, among others. As a result 

of his kind and generous nature, he invited Rosalie Fragonard 

to live there during her last years. She died there in 

1788. 

All of the medallion portraits exhibit Fragonard’s brilliantly 

economic handling of chalk. Costumes are summarily in - 

dicated so that all attention is focused on the sitter’s face. 

A similar portrait of Fragonard’s son Evariste, 9 born in 

1780, was also executed around the time of that of Betzy. 

EUNICE WILLIAMS 

56

HUBERT ROBERT 

Paris 1733–1808 Paris 

23 

RUINS OF THE BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN 

Inscribed on the 18th century mount in pen and brown ink, 

lower left, h Robert 1779 

Red chalk 

381 × 445 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Charles E. Slatkin Gallery, New York 


EXHIBITIONS 

Philadelphia, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 

The Ruins of Rome, 1960, cat. no. 108 (catalogue by R.C. Smith 

and A. Blunt) 

New York, Charles E. Slatkin Gallery, Drawings and Watercolors 

of Five Centuries, no date, pl. XVI 

As a young artist, Robert lived in Rome for eleven years 

from 1754 until 1765 and made hundreds of drawings 

ranging from notations in sketchbooks to fully realised 

compositions. Sponsored by the Comte de Stainville, 

French Ambassador to the Holy See, Robert was not a 

pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome, but he met 

artists there such as Natoire and Fragonard both of whom 

contributed to his interest in landscape. Elsewhere in Rome 

he studied with Gian Paolo Pannini and Piranesi. He became 

a master of perspective. Drawings and sketchbooks 

assembled in Rome, along with contemporary artistic 

influences, provided sources for his mature work such as 

the present composition with an inscribed date of 1779. 

Robert returned to Paris in 1765, was accepted into the 

Académie Royale in 1766, and began to participate in the 

Salons starting in 1767. Of his debut, Diderot wrote, “The 

ideas ruins evoke in me are grand. Everything comes to 

nothing, everything perishes, everything passes, only the 

world remains, only time endures. How old is the world! I 

walk between two eternities”. 1 Very soon, Hubert Robert 

became known as Robert des Ruines. 

These words could describe the present composition 

where the Roman Empire survives in fragments of architecture 

and sculpture. Two rows of Corinthian columns 

survive as do portions of the barrel vault, a niche and side 

walls. Amid the ruins, small figures gather in groups, women 

do laundry, others search for materials to recycle for shelter 

or to sell. They use history as a tangible resource for their 

lives rather than for contemplation. Only a few in the distance 

seem aware of the historic architecture. 

Fig. 1 

From his training with Pannini, Robert developed a keen 

eye for architectural composition and detail, and made cal - 

culated design appear haphazard. He records decorative 

3 

58

HUBERT ROBERT 

3 

23 

motifs along the frieze and entablature, but also includes 

stray weeds growing among the bricks. In the foreground, 

piles of broken stones clutter the floor and plinth like a 

stage set, in contrast to the vast empty space of the 

ruined hall. 

The rapidly drawn figures are typical of Robert’s staffage 

used in both urban and pastoral compositions to provide 

not only animation and action, but also a sense of scale. 

The pose of a hatted figure reclining in the right foreground 

can be found wearing antique garb in Bucolic 

Landscape, dated c. 1775, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 

Valence. 2 A comparable drawing with watercolor, Colonnade 

in Ruins, (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille), is signed and 

dated 1780 (Fig. 1). It is more pictorial in ambition, and 

therefore, more of an architectural capriccio. 3 

Emperor Maximian commissioned the enormous baths in 

298 C.E., to honor his co-Emperor Diocletian who resided 

in Nicomedia. Both emperors were military men and, in 

addition to commissioning the largest Imperial baths, 

made changes to Roman water supplies, to troop deployment 

and agricultural policy. Dedicated in 306, the baths 

continued in use until the sixth century. In centuries thereafter, 

halls were repurposed and incorporated into Christian 

churches including the Basilica of Santa Maria degli 

Angeli and the church of San Bernardo alle Terme. 4 For 

centuries, architectural students and historians have 

proposed reconstructions of the sumptuous interiors. 

EUNICE WILLIAMS 

60

LOUIS GAUFFIER 

Poitiers 1762 –1801 Florence 

24 

LA GÉNÉROSITÉ DES DAMES ROMAINES 

Inscribed on the verso, L. Gauffier D. / Il quadro del presente 

disegno e stato eseguito per il Sig. Hoppe banchiere olandese 

Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over pencil 

250 × 350 mm 

Born in Poitiers in 1762, Louis Gauffier studied in Paris under 

the esteemed painter Jean-Hughes Taraval, following 

the style of Poussin and painted almost exclusively subjects 

from Greek and Roman history. In 1784, at the age of 

twenty-two he won the Prix de Rome which provided a 

scholarship for three years’ study at the Ecole des Beaux- 

Arts in Rome. There he continued his academic training, 

drawing from pieces of classical sculpture and casts, which 

provided the basis for his classical paintings. He remained 

in Rome until 1793, except for a brief return to Paris in 

1789 cut short by the outbreak of the Revolution. Gauffier 

stayed in contact with the French Academy during this 

time and continued to send back paintings to exhibit at 

the Academy Salons. 

Fig. 1 

La Générosité des dames romaines is a finely detailed and 

highly finished drawing for a painting of the same subject 

by Gauffier which was commissioned by the collector 

Thomas Hope and exhibited at the Salon of 1791 (Fig. 1). 1 

Gauffier was highly popular with wealthy collectors who 

journeyed through Italy on their Grand Tours, and it is likely 

that Hope met him while he undertook his Grand Tour 

between 1787 and 1795. Hope clearly admired Gauffier, 

buying at least five of his pictures which he hung in his 

home in Duchess Street, London. 2 The present sheet 

shows several small differences in composition compared 

to the painting, most notably in the additional figure to 

the far right of the drawing. 

The composition of La Générosité is taken from a story recounted 

in Plutarch’s life of Marcus Furius Camillus, in 

which the patriotic women of Rome offered their gold and 

jewellery to the State in order to fulfil Camillus’s pledge to 

Apollo of a golden bowl commemorating his victory over 

Veii. However, the subject was also inspired by an actual 

event that took place in Paris during the Revolution. On 7 

September 1789, two months after the fall of Bastille, a 

group of eleven wives and daughters of artists, organised 

by Madame Moitte and including Mesdames David, Vien, 

Peyron, and Fragonard, went to the National Assembly to 

offer their jewels to the nation. Dressed all in white, with 

their hair ornamented with the tricolour, their heroic 

gesture clearly derived from the event in ancient Rome of 

the votive offering to Camillus. 3 This kind of patriotic 

donation, a practice that was soon to become common, 

was immediately commemorated in print as well as in Le 

Courier Français, which was widely distributed and would 

have been recognised by contemporaries as a direct 

reference to Roman history. 4 

During Gauffier’s voluntary exile in the early part of his 

career he dedicated himself to painting solely history subjects 

often based on Roman history, in particular those 

episodes exemplifying female virtues. His compositions, 

as seen in the present drawing, are characterised by fine 

execution, strong expressions and poses and precise detail, 

conforming to the antique movement made popular 

by David in Paris. Our drawing is comparable to another, 

showing Roman Matrons appealing to the Family of 

Coriolanus (Philadelphia Museum of Art), which served as 

a study for a painting now at the Château de Fontainebleau. 

62

FELICE GIANI 

San Sebastiano Curone 1758–1823 Rome 

25 

TELEMACHUS CONSOLED BY 

TERMOSIRIS, HIGH PRIEST OF 

THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO 

Inscribed with the title by the artist, along the lower margin, 

Telemaco consolato dal sacerdote d’Apollo 

Pen and brown ink, brown wash 

280 × 410 mm 

drew the ire of Louis XIV, and Fénelon and his friends 

were expelled from court, the printer was arrested and the 

police attempted to confiscate all copies. Yet despite 

these efforts to suppress the book it proved an instant 

and overwhelming success and was translated into every 

European language; it subsequently inspired numerous 

works of art and music, the most prominent of which is perhaps 

Mozart’s Idomeneo. 

PROVENANCE 

Prof. Richard Brilliant, New York 

The subject matter of this highly finished drawing, executed 

in Giani’s favourite technique of pen and ink and wash and 

inscribed with the title in his characteristic handwriting, is 

taken from one of the most popular and influential books 

in the eighteenth century, François de Salignac de la Mothe- 

Fénelon’s (1651–1715) didactic novel, Les aventures de 

Télémaque (The Adventures of Telemachus), first published 

anonymously in 1699. When Fénelon wrote the 

book, in circa 1694–96, he was Archbishop of Cambrai 

and tutor to the seven-year-old Duc de Bourgogne, 

grandson of Louis XIV and second in line to the throne. It 

marked the climax of his pedagogical works, following 

two other such books, the Fables and the Dialogues of the 

Dead. The book’s description of a tyrant immediately 

Complementing Homer’s Odyssey with fictitious adventures, 

the book describes the travels of the young Tele - 

machus in search of his father Ulysses. During his travels 

and guided by Minerva (disguised as Mentor, presumed 

friend of Ulysses), Telemachus meets various fatherly 

figures, each of whom teaches him a specific moral lesson. 

His first encounter – that depicted in our drawing – is 

with Termosiris, the High Priest of the Temple of Apollo. 

A volume, inscribed Apolo is resting on his lap, and the 

temple of the god can be seen behind the tree. Termo si - 

ris’s lesson is to avoid the passions and follow the example 

of Apollo “who, when enduring captivity as a shepherd, 

used the time wisely to teach the uncivilised inhabitants of 

the region the art of music and an appreciation for the 

joys of their bucolic existence. Soon, the half-savage 

shepherds realised that they were in reality more for - 

tunate in their simplicity than kings in their golden 

palaces.” 1 

Anna Ottani Gavina dates our drawing to the late eighteenth 

century. 2 From that time, most likely the 1790s, 

date a pair of oval paintings also based on Fénelon’s 

book. One of these shows a closely related subject from 

the beginning of the novel, Minerva disguised as Mentor 

who directs Telemachus toward the boat in which to begin 

his voyage leaving the island of Calypso behind. 3 Many 

years later, around 1820, Giani returned again to Fénelon’s 

book and the story of Telemachus. One of his sketchbooks 

preserved at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, 

New York, contains several such drawings, 4 one of which, 

still unpublished, shows Telemachus receiving a book from 

Termosiris (Fig. 1). 5 These sketches and their related inscriptions 

suggest that Giani was then working on illustrations 

or perhaps a decorative cycle of based on the book. 

Fig. 1 

64

LUIGI SABATELLI 

Florence 1772–1850 Milan 

26 

PORTRAIT OF LUIGI RICASOLI, 

AGED SEVEN 

Signed and dated, lower right, Luigi Sabatelli / fece 1808 

Inscribed, lower left, Luigi Ricasoli 

Pen and brown ink 

298 × 208 mm 

Made at the height of the Neo-classical style in Florence 

in 1808, this finished drawing shows Luigi Ricasoli, second 

son of the Marchese Pietro Leopoldo Ricasoli Zanchini 

(1778–1850) and his wife, the Marchesa Lucrezia Ricasoli 

(née Rinuccini). It formed part of a group of six portrait 

drawings showing the parents and four of their sons, now 

dispersed. 1 Except for one, the portraits are all executed 

in pen and ink only,in Sabatelli’s highly characteristic style 

including some stippling, a technique that no doubt resulted 

from his activity as a printmaker. 

Sabatelli knew the Ricasolis, one of the oldest of the noble 

Florentine families, well; indeed he enjoyed their patronage 

over a period of over two decades. He is likely to have 

met the Marchese Pietro Leopoldo Ricasoli sometime 

after the latter’s return to Florence from Vienna in 1802. 

The godson of Pietro Leopoldo Grand Duke of Tuscany, 

Ricasoli had succeeded his father as prior of the Order of 

Santo Stefano and became chamberlain to King Lodovico 

de Bourbon (1773–1803). He was later confirmed in that 

position at the Austrians’ return to power in 1814. In 1896 

he had married Lucrezia Rinuccini, another member of the 

old Florentine nobility and a highly accomplished musician 

and keyboard player. Together they were great 

patrons of music and literature, and assembled a highly 

important collection of musical sheets now preserved at 

the University of Louisville. Ricasoli befriended Canova, 

who presented him with a plaster of Napoleon and another 

of Pope Pius VII. Sabatelli’s portrait of the pope, made the 

same year as the present drawings, is now in the Uffizi. 

Ricasoli commissioned from Sabatelli a fresco of Saint 

Jerome for the Chiesa di San Girolamo at Fiesole, outside 

Florence, where the family owned a house. In 1828, 

Sabatelli, together with his sons Francesco (1801–1829) 

and Giuseppe (1813–1843), painted the large canvases of 

the life of Saint Anthony of Padua for the Ricasoli family 

chapel in S. Croce, Florence. Like his father and brothers, 

Luigi enjoyed a distinguished career in the Church. After 

entering the Compagnia di Gesù in Rome, he later became 

the Jesuit Society’s secretary. 

Roughly between 1797 and 1810 Sabatelli made a significant 

number of highly finished portrait drawings in pen 

and ink, 2 mostly in profile and in three-quarter profile, of 

friends and fellow artists, such as Antonio Canova (1805) 3 

or the painter Pietro Benvenuti (1808), 4 and illustrious contemporaries, 

such as the violinist Paganini (1810), 5 the 

Abate Luigi Lanzi, 6 and Pope Pius VII (1808), 7 to name but 

a few. 1808 appears to have been a particularly productive 

year for Sabatelli’s portrait drawings, which include renderings 

of the famous anatomist Paolo Mascagni, 8 the 

poet Luigi Fiacchi, 9 the archbishop of Florence, Monsignor 

Antonio Martini, 10 the lawyer Rivani, 11 and another version 

of Lanzi’s portrait. 12 Among the most accomplished portrait 

drawings of the period, these sheets are usually 

signed, dated and identify the sitter, as is the case with 

the present drawing. The vast majority of these portraits, a 

single group of altogether 67 sheets that were formerly 

bound in an album, are today in the Galleria Nazionale 

d’Arte Moderna, Rome, while eleven sheets, some of which 

repeat portraits now in Rome, are in the Uffizi, Florence. 

Outside these two institutions, such highly finished portraits 

are extremely rare. 

In their purity of line and noble detachment, and yet fully 

capturing our sitter’s personality, the present drawing is 

among the purest examples of Italian Neo-classical portraiture. 

Shortly before the turn of the eighteenth century, 

several artists in Rome and Florence had excelled in portrait 

drawings of their contemporaries, both of prominent 

luminaries and of casual sitters of humble profession or 

origin. Perhaps the most important exponent of this practice 

was Jean Baptiste Wicar who filled several albums 

both with highly finished as well as sketchier portraits, 

generally using his preferred technique of graphite. 

Particularly notable for their portrait drawings among his 

Italian colleagues were Pietro Benvenuti and Giovan 

Battista Dell’Era, yet it was Sabatelli, who, while generally 

working on a slightly larger scale and in a virtuoso pen 

technique, made the most profound contribution to this 

genre. 

66

BARTOLOMEO PINELLI 

Rome 1781–1835 Rome 

27 

BRIGANDS PREPARING AN ATTACK 

and 

BRIGANDS RESTING 

Both signed and dated, lower left, Pinelli fece 1824 Roma 

Watercolour, over black chalk, with the artist’s framing lines 

Each 320 × 395 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Private collection, Rome 

LITERATURE 

M. Fagiolo and M. Marini, Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781–1835) e il 

suo tempo, exhibition catalogue, Centro Iniziative Culturali 

Pantheon and Galleria Rondanini, Rome, 1983, pp. 136–37, 

figs 127–28 

In the early 1820s Pinelli made several sets of drawings, 

watercolours, and prints, showing Briganti, or brigands, 

the subject that he would subsequently perhaps be most 

closely associated with. Briganti, the proud and fiercely independent, 

thuggish banditti who lived in gangs with 

their entourage in the surroundings of the Roman hills and 

robbed travellers and pilgrims on their way to Rome, had 

long been of great fascination to artists. They had captured 

the imagination of earlier men such as John Hamilton 

Mortimer, who elevated the free-spirited bandit to an 

heroic level and even made a portrait drawing of himself 

in the guise of a brigand (circa 1775). While brigands 

posed a great threat to travellers in the papal state, they 

lived themselves under constant fear of police raids. In 

1819 the papal police launched a major campaign, during 

which the captured brigands were taken to Rome where 

they were imprisoned with their families in the Baths of 

Diocletian. 1 It was on such occasions that the artists in 

Rome had the opportunity to study from up-close these 

outlaws and their extravagant costumes. Brigands, some 

of whom became famous, such as Gasparone who dictated 

his life while in prison, or Bizzarro, play a consistent part in 

Pinelli’s graphic and sculptural output. 

Brigands feature prominently in one of Pinelli’s most popular 

publications, the Cinquanta costumi de’ contorni di 

Roma, compresi di diversi fatti di briganti, designed 

between 1819 and 1822 and published in 1823. 2 From the 

same period date a set of twenty-five prints of various 

brigand subjects, 3 his set of nine prints of the life of the 

notorious Alessandro Massaroni (1823), who had been 

killed by papal troops in 1821, 4 and two sets of drawings 

showing the gruesome (and true) Story of the Beheaded 

Brigand (1823). 5 

In addition to these publications, Pinelli made large and 

highly finished watercolours such as these, usually prom - 

inently signed and dated and no doubt made as independent 

works of art intended for sale to collectors. Several 

examples survive that suggest Pinelli occasionally designed 

them as pairs. Another such pair, made a year after ours, 

for instance, shows Brigands Enjoying a Picnic and Brigands 

Caught in Surprise by the Police. 6 Our works show the 

moment before an attack and, most probably, the peaceful 

rest in the Roman Campagna thereafter. The idea that 

women would actively participate (here, spying out the 

target) in a heinous crime can frequently be found Pinelli’s 

Brigand scenes. He also often made additional versions of 

his most successful compositions. Another version of our 

scene before the attack, with notable differences in the 

group of brigands on the left, was recorded with Galleria 

Nardechia in Rome in 1976. 7 Rarely, however, have Pinelli’s 

watercolours come down to us in such pristine state as the 

present sheets. 

68

JOHN FLAXMAN 

York 1755–1826 London 

28 

SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST 

Signed and inscribed, verso, … 7 th Chapel St. John / 

John Flaxman 

Brush and grey wash, over pencil 

735 × 380 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Private collection, England 

Flaxman’s greatest ambition as an artist was no doubt to 

succeed in monumental sculpture – he was to become the 

Royal Academy’s first professor of sculpture in 1810 – 

though his early fame and influence rests primarily on his 

drawings for outline engravings illustrating the works of 

the great poets of antiquity, such as Homer’s Iliad and 

Odyssey (both 1793), Aeschylos’ tragedies (published in 

1795), or those of the early modern poets, such as Dante’s 

Divine Comedy (made circa 1793– 95, published 1807). 

From his days as a teenager at the Royal Academy, which 

he joined at the age of fifteen in 1770, Flaxman had a 

promising career. At the academy, then under Reynolds’s 

directorship, he knew William Blake and from 1775 he befriended 

George Romney, who had just returned from 

Italy. He also secured a job at the firm of Wedgwood and 

Bentley to provide designs for its jasperware. For the 

following twenty years, Josiah Wedgwood’s patronage 

helped secure Flaxman’s financial stability, a vital concern 

during the artist’s entire life. 

In the years following his appointment to the Academy, 

the greatest public honour Britain bestowed on Flaxman 

during his lifetime, he delivered a series of lectures on 

sculpture, addressed to students and future artists, in which 

he laid out his view of the role and history of sculpture from 

the early Egyptians to the masterpieces of his own century. 

Some of his lectures were published posthumously in London 

in 1829 in a volume entitled Lectures on Sculpture. 1 

This book, reprinted many times since, contains fifty-three 

lithographic illustrations, executed by Flaxman’s sister - 

in-law, Maria Denman, after the artist’s drawings. 

Fig. 1 

Flaxman was known to have prepared his lectures meticulously. 

2 Numerous extant drawings and sketches, many 

today at the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, testify to the great care 

he took in their preparation. 3 The drawings’ range covers 

early primitive works, classic Greek and Roman sculpture, 

and even Indian costumes. Flaxman also made large-scale 

drawings, which he then exhibited in the lecture theatre to 

accompany and illuminate his lectures. Their significant 

size allowed for excellent visibility from the distance and 

left a lasting impression on his audience, judging at least 

from one comment by his friend, the architect C.R. Cockerell, 

who wrote in his diary in 1823: “Flaxman’s lectures 

are literally but the exposition of beautiful drawings.” 4 3 

70

JOHN FLAXMAN 

3 

28 

Our drawing belongs to this category and is reproduced 

in plate VII of Flaxman’s Lectures. More specifically, it was 

made for his first lecture, perhaps surprisingly dedicated 

not to classical art, as one might expect, but to English 

sculpture. It shows the statue of St. John the Evangelist, 

one of the statues surrounding the tomb of Henry VII in 

the Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey (Fig. 1). Constructed 

in circa 1503–17, it is considered the last great masterpiece 

of English medieval architecture. In 1545, John 

Leland called it “the wonder of the entire world. Flaxman 

used the chapel to discuss the stylistic differences between 

the tomb itself, the work of the Florentine sculptor 

Pietro Torrigiano (1472–1528), and the many statues (“it 

has been said the number of statues … amounted to 

three thousand!”) located in the niches of the surrounding 

arches of the chapel. Based upon these differences and 

historical evidence he correctly deemed the latter the 

work of native artists. 5 And while he acknowledged that 

“[Torrigiano’s] … figures of the tomb have better proportion 

and drawing in the naked,” he concluded that “the 

figures of the chapel are very superior in natural simplicity 

and grandeur of character and drapery. 6 Flaxman chose 

our drawing to make this point. Indeed, he illustrated St. 

John not once but twice in his book. While plate VII reproduces 

exactly our drawing, plate VIII shows St. John in the 

wider architectural context of his niche and surrounded by 

other statues. Our drawing is thus a forceful testimony to 

Flaxman’s longstanding interest in medieval Britain – his 

drawings of medieval subject matter date from as early as 

the 1780s, 7 and reflects the new appreciation of, and pride 

in, the quality and beauty of works of art that native masters, 

long considered inferior to their foreign competitors, 

were able to create. 

72

JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES 

Montauban 1780–1867 Paris 

29 

PORTRAIT OF ANGÉLINE 

RAOUL-ROCHETTE 

Signed and dated, lower left, Ingres 1834; inscribed, 

upper left, M lle Angeline Raoul Rochette 

Pencil 

243 × 185 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Désiré-Raoul Rochette (d. 1854), and his wife, Antoinette- 

Claude, née Houdon (d. 1878), Paris, by descent to their 

grandson and son of the sitter 

Raoul Perrin (d. 1910), Paris, by descent to his widow 

Mme. Raoul Perrin, née Claire Lebon (d. 1912), Paris; 

by descent to their son 

Edmond Perrin (d. 1919), Paris 

Mme. Brialix (1921) 

Galerie Wildenstein, Paris 

Galerie Pétridès, Paris (c. 1948) 

Rosenberg & Stiebel Inc., New York (1948) 

Justin K. Thannhauser, New York, by 1955, sold in 1963 to 

Feilchenfeldt & Cie., Zurich 

Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, (1966) 


Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, (1968) 

Private collection, Canada 

Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London (1977) 

Jan Krugier, Geneva 

Private Collection 

LITERATURE 

H. Naef, Die Bildniszeichnungen von J.-A.-D. Ingres, Bern, 1980, 

V, pp. 190–91, cat. no. 350, illustrated (with earlier literature) 

EXHIBITIONS 

Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Ingres, 1867, cat. no. 574 

Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Ingres, 1911, cat. no. 142 

Paris, Chambre syndicale de la Curiosité et des Beaux-Arts, 

Ingres, 1921, cat. no. 234 

New York, Paul Rosenberg & Co., Ingres in American 

Collections, 1961, cat. no. 46, illustrated 

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd., Exhibition of French & 

English Drawings, 1780– 965, 1966, cat. no. 137, illustrated 

Ottawa, National Gallery of Art, European Drawings from 

Canadian Collections, 1500–1900, 1977, pp. 102–03, cat. no. 43, 

illustrated 

London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Master Drawings, 1977, 

cat. no. 37, illustrated 

Ingres returned to Paris from Italy in 1824 after an extended 

stay at the Académie de France in Rome. It was while 

in Rome that he perfected his famous technique as a 

draughtsman of producing meticulously executed portrait 

drawings on smooth wove paper in thin, hard graphite. In 

1825 Ingres received the Croix de la Légion d’Honneur 

and over the next decade continued to work on official 

and private commissions such as the monumental Martyrdom 

of Saint Symphorien for the cathedral at Autun. His 

portrait drawings remained in great demand from the 

higher echelons of French society and the aristocracy of 

Europe but Ingres’s reputation was now such that he 

could afford to produce portrait drawings almost exclusively 

for friends and associates. 

In 1830 he drew a portrait of his close friend, Désiré-Raoul 

Rochette, called Raoul-Rochette (1790– 1854) now in the 

Albertina (inv. 24220). Raoul-Rochette was an archaeol - 

ogist and later Conservateur du Cabinet des Médailles at 

the Bibliothèque Nationale and on the recommendation 

of Ingres in 1839 was appointed Secrétaire perpétuel to 

the Académie des Beaux Arts. At the same time, Ingres 

drew a portrait of Raoul-Rochette’s wife, the beautiful 

Antoinette-Claude or Claudine (Cleveland Museum of Art, 

inv. 1927.437). Claudine was the youngest daughter of the 

famous sculptor Houdon. Four years later in 1834, Ingres 

made two drawings of the Raoul-Rochette daughters, 

Angéline, portrayed in our drawing and her younger sister 

Anne-Joséphine-Cécile (private collection, New York) 1 

who was also an artist and who later married Luigi Calamatta, 

Ingres’s pupil and engraver. 

In our portrait Angéline (1814–1874) is aged twenty years 

old. She later married Paul Perrin, officier-supérieur d’artillerie. 

She is portrayed wearing the fashionable dress of 

the time with broad gigot, or leg of mutton sleeves, over a 

large skirt and her tiny waist is emphasised by a wide 

Greek style key-pattern belt. Her hair is elegantly parted 

and then curled and looped on top in the popular style of 

the day. Her right hand conceals perhaps a lover’s portrait 

miniature which hangs from a black velvet ribbon. Ingres’s 

portrayal of Angéline is more finished than that of her 

younger sister. He has concentrated on her voluptuous 

features emphasizing her dark eyes which stare solemnly 

out at us. Angéline fills the page and her dress “reflects 

the change in women’s fashions from the slim austerity of 

the Empire style to the well-rounded amplitude of the 

Orléans monarchy.” 2 

74

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH 

Greifswald 1774–1840 Dresden 

30 

A BURST SPRUCE 

Inscribed and dated, lower right, Fichte, April 1825 

Watercolour over pencil 

161 × 126 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Private collection, Belgium 

LITERATURE 

C. Grummt, Caspar David Friedrich, Die Zeichnungen, Munich, 

2011, p. 915, cat. no. 1010, illustrated 

Drawings from 1825 are very rare in Friedrich’s extant oeuvre. 

Apart from the present sheet, there is but one other 

drawing from this period, Mountain Range with Rock and 

Tree, at Oslo. 1 Both drawings are inscribed with the same 

month and year, “April, 1825,” but not with the day when 

they were made. These annotations suggest that both 

sheets were made en plein air, yet without any further hint 

as to where they were made. What is striking about both 

drawings is Friedrich’s use of watercolour. The special 

characteristics peculiar to Friedrich’s watercolour technique 

have only recently been discovered. More precisely, 

they show that the aesthetic effect of Friedrich’s watercolours 

depends crucially on his highly personal use of the 

pencil. 2 On the one hand Friedrich used pencil in the 

usual way for underdrawing, but pencil was also used on 

top of watercolour (after it had dried) for hatching, zigzag 

lines, and single-line contours. In the present drawing one 

can see parallel hatching spread over the coloured surfaces, 

which Friedrich used to help underline the contrasts 

which have already been formulated in colour. As a result, 

the red outer bark of the tree is covered with horizontal 

hatching, while the brown inner areas of the tree trunk 

have vertical parallel hatching. Inside the tree Friedrich 

used much finer pencil lines compared to those on the 

outside where a softer pencil and thicker lines were used 

to indicate the surface of the bark. This use of pencil overlaying 

watercolour first appears in Friedrich’s graphic 

oeuvre in 1810. 3 

Just as drawings from 1825 are extremely rare in Friedrich’s 

graphic oeuvre, so is the motif of the bizarre, broken tree 

trunk. Apart from the present sheet, there are only two 

other drawings in Friedrich’s oeuvre showing a broken 

tree: the Dresden Willow struck by Lightning, dated 14 

March 1812, 4 and the Prague drawing of the same subject, 

made five days later on 19 March 1812. 5 

The catalogue of the 1974 exhibition at Hamburg 6 correctly 

noted that a broken tree similar to that in the Prague 

drawing appears also in Friedrich’s painting of the Tombs 

of ancient Heroes at Hamburg. 7 In the end, however, the 

only sheet actually used by Friedrich was the Dresden 

Willow struck by Lightning. 8 So far no connection has 

been found between the present sheet and Friedrich’s 

paintings. 

CHRISTINA GRUMMT 

76

JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET 

Gruchy 1814–1875 Barbizon 

31 

LA LAITIERE NORMANDE 

Stamped with the estate stamp, lower right, J.F.M 

Red chalk 

225 × 163 mm 

PROVENANCE 

Possibly Charles Tillot, Barbizon and Paris, acquired from the 

artist’s family about 1875, his sale: Paris, Hotel Drouot, 14 May 

1887, lot 38 

J. Staats Forbes, London, before 1904 

L. W. Livesey, London, sold on 25 November 1911 to 

Galerie Heinemann, Munich (inv. 13008, Kat. 86), sold on 25 

November 1916 for 1,200 Mark to 

Dr. Hans Wendland, Lugano 

With Frans Buffa, Amsterdam, 1930 

Dr. H. Wiegersma, Deurne, Holland 

Sale: London, Sothebys, 25 November 1959, lot 78, 

purchased by 

Hazlitt Gallery, London 

Stephen Spector, New York, 1963 

Wildenstein & Co. Ltd., London, 1969 

Mrs. A. Loria, London 


EXHIBITIONS 

London, Leicester Galleries, The Staats Forbes Collection of 

One Hundred Drawings by Jean Francois Millet, 1906, 

cat. no. 76, as La Porteuse d’eau 

Leipzig, Leipziger Kunstverein, according to an undated label 

on the backing, with associated no. 6784 

London, Hazlitt Gallery, Some Paintings of the Barbizon School, 

May 1960, cat. no. 20, reproduced and illustrated on cover 

Amercan Federation of the Arts, The Road to Impressionism, 

travelling exhibition, 1963– 64, cat. no. 39 

London, Wildenstein & Co. Ltd., J.-F. Millet (1814–1875), 1969, 

cat. no. 50, illustrated 

LITERATURE 

L. Benedite, The Drawings of J.F. Millet, London, 1906, pl. 32, 

as La Porteuse d’eau 

R.L. Herbert, “La laitiere normande a Greville de J.F. Millet,” in 

La Revue du Louvre et des Musees de France, February 1980, 

p. 15, fig. 4, D.2 

Jean-Francois Millet drew this powerful study of a milkmaid 

returning from the fields in 1849– 50 as preparation 

for one of his first significant compositions to confront the 

traditional depiction of the rural worker in French art. The 

most finished of four sheets of drawings that led to a small 

painting also titled La Laitiere normande (Princeton Univ - 

ersity Art Museum), this striking sanguine attests to 

Millet’s determination to capture the actual gestures and 

real strains that shape the human figure at work. Created 

concurrently with his landmark Salon paintings of Le 

Vanneur (National Gallery, London) in 1848 and Le Semeur 

(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) in 1850, La Laitiere 

normande marks the new direction in Millet’s art and establishes 

the centrality of figure study to his developing 

Realism. 

Millet grew up in Contentin Normandy where tending a 

small family herd of cows and producing butter or cheese 

was a principal responsibility for a young woman. He understood 

the milkmaid’s long hours; he knew the heaviness 

of her copper canne. Importantly, he also recognised 

the disservice done to such hard-working women by conventional 

imagery that had long depicted the milkmaid as 

the quintessential country girl, naïve and susceptible to 

the lures of young men, or the foolish exemplar of the old 

adage, “There’s no use in crying over spilt milk.” The milkmaids 

of Boucher, Fragonard and popular theater dressed 

in tightly laced corsets and danced through their tasks as 

if the shiny cannes had no weight at all. Indeed, Millet 

himself had tucked just such a balletic milkmaid into a 

large signboard painted for a Cherbourg veterinarian in 

1841; but when he returned to the theme at the end of the 

decade, Millet was searching for subjects that would allow 

him to explore the human figure at work and (perhaps) to 

right the city-bound art lover’s dismissive view of the 

countryside. 

Four sheets of drawings (all sanguine, a medium Millet 

used only briefly in the late 1840s) are known for Millet’s 

1849 painting: the first with three small sketches of the 

figure from two angles in the Louvre (inv. RF 5780, Fig. 1); 

a large, unevenly worked drawing that sets up the placement 

of the milkmaid’s arms but tilts her head and torso 

3 

78

JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET 

3 

31 

further to the right (private collection, Germany); the 

present drawing; and a now-lost sheet that situates the 

milkmaid in a rough pasture with cows (last recorded at 

Amsterdam, 1903). In contrast to the uneven emphasis in 

the other sheets, the present drawing flows as one piece, 

with Millet’s strengthening of critical contours in the milkmaid’s 

right shoulder and the long line of her left side 

creating a tension and a space that focus attention on the 

young woman’s outstretched arm and the assured curl 

with which her fingers manage the long cord that secures 

her canne against her shoulder. Millet would reconsider 

the theme of the Norman milkmaid at least a half-dozen 

times over the next twenty years, changing her costume, 

broadening the landscape; but the essential poise and 

gesture that establish her mastery of her task are set out in 

this drawing of La Laitiere normande. 

of Millet’s executors and was an avid collector of Millet’s 

drawings); however the similarity in size of three of the 

Norman milkmaid drawings prevents certainty of Tillot’s 

ownership. The reproduction of the drawing in colour 

in Benedite’s album of drawings from J. Staats Forbes’ 

collection (London and Philadelphia, 1906) has given the 

drawing a well-deserved measure of fame but has confused 

its identity with the incorrect title La Porteuse d’eau. 

ALEXANDRA MURPHY 

The well-preserved, heavily layered collection of dealer 

marks and exhibition labels on the old backing board of 

La Laitiere normande provides an exceptionally complete 

history for the drawing. Like nearly all of Millet’s working 

drawings, La Laitiere normande remained in his studio at 

his death, as the cachet d’atelier of the artist’s initials at 

lower right attests. There is no record of the drawing’s 

sale, but it seems likely that this is the sanguine of La 

Laitiere normande that belonged a few years later to 

Charles Tillot (a young artist and critic who served as one 

Fig. 1 

80

ADOLPH VON MENZEL 

Breslau 1815–1905 Berlin 

32 

A LADY IN AN ELABORATE HAT 

Signed and dated, lower right, A.M. 92 

Pencil 

182 × 115 mm 

PROVENANCE 


In the last two decades of his life, Menzel focused on 

drawings rather than paintings, but unlike the precise, 

sharply defined style of earlier pencil drawings, his later 

works have a much softer appearance, no doubt due to 

his preferred use of soft carpenter’s pencil, black chalk 

and Conté crayon. The present sheet, taken from life, was 

executed in 1892 and shows a wide range of tone and 

subtle variation of texture. The date suggests that this 

drawing was executed at the time Menzel worked at Bad 

Kissingen. Biergarten in Kissingen (1891) 1 and the Baker’s 

Shop in Kissingen (1893) 2 show comparable elegantly 

dressed women in hats, sitting at tables or strolling 

through a park. Similar studies are in the Museum of Fine 

Arts, Boston, 3 the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New 

York, 4 and the Albertina, Vienna. 5 

In the 1880s and 1890s Menzel drew a large number of 

informal, close-up portraits. His close friend, Paul Meyerheim, 

reported that he often chose his models from a 

group of people that would gather outside his studio. He 

preferred to work with ordinary people since he wished 

his work to be regarded for its artistic merit, rather than 

for the prominence of his sitters. He also took his models 

from the streets and restaurants of Berlin. Menzel’s sitters 

are usually portrayed in profile and from unusual angles, 

and he often concentrated on the texture of the hair, the 

clothes, the hats, and the skin. 

82

ADOLF HIRÉMY HIRSCHL 

Temesvár 1860–1933 Rome 

33 

VENUS 

Pastel on buff paper 

515 × 375 mm 

PROVENANCE 


A fully worked up pastel made in preparation for Hirémy- 

Hirschl’s life-size panel painting of the Birth of Venus 

(Fig. 1). 1 The precise date of the picture is unknown. Jörg 

Garms, in his seminal article on the artist of 1982 suggested 

a date around 1910, 2 while Charles McCorquodale, 3 in his 

review of the Hirschl exhibition at the Matthiesen Gallery, 

London, in 1987, 4 preferred a slightly earlier date of circa 

1900. Some of Hirschl’s most spectacular pastels and drawings 

relate to the Birth of Venus, generally focusing on the 

standing figure of the goddess, for which the artist used 

one of his favourite models. 5 Our pastel seems the only 

extant work closely studying the figure’s head and upper 

body. Among other notable pastels, comparable in size, 

technique and execution, and showing the same model, 

are several sheets made in preparation for Hirschl’s painting 

La sorgente (the Source), 6 and a study of a reclining 

woman for the painting Bathing Women of circa 1900. 7 

A student of the Vienna Academy, Hirschl enjoyed early 

success, winning the Rompreis in 1882, which enabled him 

to visit the eternal city. He also won the Kaiserpreis in 1891 – 

the highest artistic honour in Vienna – one year after Gustav 

Klimt who was the first winner of that newly created prize. 

In 1898, at the Emperor’s 50-year jubilee exhibition at the 

Künstlerhaus, Hirschl was the only Austrian to win a gold 

medal (for his Souls at the Acheron, 1898), in addition to another 

prize. That year he married Isa Ruston, daughter of an 

English businessman freshly divorced from her Viennese 

husband. Amidst the ensuing scandal, Hirschl lost patrons 

and vital support, such as that of the house of Habsburg. He 

added the Hungarian name Hirémy to his last name and 

moved to Rome, where he remained for the rest of his life. 

Hirschl was known to have been meticulous in his prepar - 

ation with drawings of his usually large-scale paintings. He 

generally worked in chalk and made a particular specialty 

of pastels, a technique, which he appears to have employed 

increasingly after his permanent move to Rome in 1898. 

His choice of paper is also characteristic, often using blue, 

orange, or as in our pastel, buff paper. Fig. 1 

84

JULES PASCIN 

Vidin 1885–1930 Paris 

34 

JEUNE GARÇON 

Signed, lower left, Pascin 

Black crayon, gouache 

250 × 330 mm 

This is a particularly vigorous early work in black crayon 

with touches of gouache that shows one of Pascin’s 

favourite models from the beginning of the second 

decade of the twentieth century. 1 Several drawings, mostly 

executed in chalk and gouache or watercolour, show the 

same model in different poses standing or reclining as in 

the present work. 2 The androgynous character of these 

works, particularly evident in the present sheet, has often 

been noted, and it may come as no surprise, therefore, 

that Pascin used the same model in a painting of a young 

girl, Fillette assise, of 1911, perhaps the type of picture he 

was to become most closely associated with during his 

relatively short but intense career (Fig. 1). 3 A preparatory 

drawing for the painting in black crayon shows the same 

young boy with long hair in a standing pose (Fig. 2). 

The present drawing was made in Paris, where Pascin had 

moved from Munich in December 1905. Of Jewish extraction, 

he was born Julius Mordecai Pincas in Bulgaria to a 

wealthy family of grain merchants. He received his artistic 

training first in Vienna and then in Munich where he soon 

contributed drawings to the satirical magazine Simplicissimus. 

Around that time he adopted his new name, 

Pascin, an anagram of Pincas. In 1914 he left Paris for New 

York where he sat out the war before returning to France 

in 1920. He was an extremely prolific, if not compulsive, 

draughtsman and painter, and his name became near 

synonymous with the bohemian life of the Montparnasse 

art scene. Not unlike his contemporary Schiele and the 

slightly younger Balthus, Pascin’s often-erotic work was 

the result of an intense artistic engagement with his models. 

And like his more famous colleagues, his intimate drawings 

and watercolours convey a great sympathy for his 

models, whom he captured with his own, unmistakably 

personal style. 

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 

86

ELIOT HODGKIN 

Purley-on-Thames 1905–1987 London 

35 

TWO OYSTER SHELLS 

Signed and dated, lower right: Eliot Hodgkin: 26 × 63 

Tempera on board 

127 × 216 mm 

PROVENANCE 

The Reid Gallery, London 

Brooke Hayward 

Eliot Hodgkin’s talents as a draughtsman were soon 

recognised at his school at Harrow. 1 Encouraged by his 

teachers, he pursued his artistic education in London at 

the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Royal Academy 

Schools, where he studied under the painter and poster 

designer, Francis Ernest Jackson (1872–1945). An interest 

in design initially led him into the field of fashion drawing, 

on which he published his first book in 1932, and into 

mural decoration of houses and restaurants. By the mid- 

1930s, however, Hodgkin had established his reputation 

as painter of still lives and landscapes and was a frequent 

exhibitor at the Royal Academy of Art. His first solo exhibition 

was in London at Picture Hire Ltd. in 1936 and several 

others were to follow, notably in New York at Durlacher 

Bros., and in London at Wildenstein, Leicester Galleries, 

the Arthur Jeffress Gallery, and Agnew’s. In more recent 

years, his work was the subject of four monographic ex - 

hibitions at Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox. His paintings feature 

prominently in both private and public collections including 

the Tate Britain. 

“In so far as I have any conscious purpose, it is to show the 

beauty of natural objects which are normally thought un - 

interesting or even unattractive: such things as Brussels 

sprouts, turnips, onions, pebbles and flints, bulbs, dead 

leaves, bleached vertebrae, an old boot cast up by the tide. 

People sometimes tell me that they had never really ‘seen’ 

something before I painted it, and I should like to believe 

this.” 2 

Our tempera of two oyster shells placed against a textured 

backdrop, exemplifies the type of small natural objects that 

Hodgkin frequently painted. As was the artist’s custom, the 

oysters were painted directly from life and are shown in 

their actual size. 

Hodgkin is especially admired today for his meticulous 

still lives comprised of fruits, vegetables, feathers, eggs, 

leaves and various other objects from the natural world. 

Executed in oil or tempera on board, he typically arranged 

the object of his gaze simply and elegantly against 

a neutral background. In doing so, he encourages us to 

focus, pause and reflect on objects – often part of everyday 

life – that would otherwise escape our notice. In 

effect, he challenges us to see them for the first time. In 

the artist’s own words: 

88

NOTES 

1 GIULIO PIPPI, CALLED GIULIO ROMANO 

1 A. Belluzzi, Palazzo Te a Mantova, 2 vols., Modena, 1998, 

pl. 670. 

2 Ibid., pl. 832. 

2 GIORGIO VASARI 

1 Frey II, p. 860, no. 135. 

2 For a full discussion of Vasari’s Altoviti Immaculate Conception 

see F. Härb in A. Chong, D. Pegazzano and D. Zikos, 

Raphael, Cellini & and Renaissance Banker. The Patronage 

of Bindo Altroviti, exhibition catalogue, Isabella Stewart 

Gardner Museum, Boston, and Museo Nazionale del Bargello, 

Florence, 2003– 04, cat. no. 21. 

3 For instance, in his Adoration of the Magi painted for Rimini 

in 1547 (side panels recently discovered), or the Coronation 

of the Virgin in the Badia, Florence (1566– 68). 

4 Inv. 2197; pen and brown ink, brown wash over black chalk, 

410 × 310 mm; see Monbeig-Goguel 1972, cat. no. 193, 

illustrated 

5 F. Härb, “Modes and Models in Vasari’s Early Drawing 

Œuvre,” in P. Jacks (ed.), Giorgio Vasari. Artists and Literati 

at the Medicean Court (proceeds of the conference, Yale 

University, 1994), New Haven, 1998, p. 88. Frey I, p. 107. 

6 B. 57. 

7 See J. Kliemann in L. Corti, C. Davis, M. Daly Davis, and 

J. Kliemann (eds.), Giorgio Vasari, principi, letterati e artisti 

nelle carte di Giorgio Vasari. Pittura vasariana dal 1532 al 

1554, exhibition catalogue, Casa Vasari, Sottochiesa di San 

Francesco, Arezzo, 1981, pp. 103–08. 

8 D. Franklin, Rosso in Italy. The Italian Career of Rosso 

Fiorentino, New Haven and London, 1994, pp. 236–46, 

figs. 189–90. 

9 Vasari-Milanesi V, p. 164. 

10 Franklin, op. cit., pp. 242–43, figs. 189–90. 

11 G. Gaeta Bertelà, Archivio del collezionismo Mediceo. Il 

Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici, I. Rapporti con il mercato 

veneto, vol II (catalogo storico dei disegni), Milan and 

Naples, 1987, p. 477. 

3 GIORGIO VASARI 

1 K. and H.-W. Frey, Giorgio Vasari, Der literarische Nachlass, 

3 vols., Munich, 1923, 1930, and 1940, I, pp. 501–04, 

no. CCLXVI. In the Ricordanze Vasari lists the room under 

the year 1559, between the Sala di Lorenzo il Magnifico and 

Sala di Giovanni dalle Bande Nere (Frey, op. cit., II, p. 874, 

no. 256). 

2 Frey, op. cit., I, pp. 439–42, no. CCXXXIV. 

3 The exception is Fivizzano, which is depicted as an old 

woman. 

4 Inv. 2174; see C. Monbeig-Goguel, op.cit., Vasari et son 

Temps, Inventaire Générale des Dessins Italiens, I, Paris, 

1972, cat. no. 210, illustrated. 

5 One of the scenes in the Louvre design, Cosimo reviving 

Empoli, was ultimately replaced by Cosimo reviving Prato. 

6 Inv. B 2646-6876, see F. Härb, op.cit., in D. Franklin (ed.), 

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and the Renaissance in 

Florence, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Canada, 

Ottawa, 2005, under cat. no. 110. A finished study for the 

central ceiling painting showing Cosimo I de’ Medici 

triumphant at the battle of Montemurlo following the 

defeat of the fuorusciti under Piero Strozzi in 1537 is in the 

Uffizi (inv. 1186E). 

7 R.A. Scorza, “Vasari and Gender: A New Drawing for the 

Sala di Cosimo I,” in Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 

1995– 96, op.cit., pp. 64–74, fig. 1. 

8 Härb, op. cit., 2005, cat. no. 110, illustrated. 

9 G. Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti Pittori, Scultori ed 

Architettori, in G. Milanesi (ed.), Le Opere di Giorgio Vasari, 

9 vols., Florence, 1878– 85, VIII, p. 194. 

4 | 5GIROLAMO MACCHIETTI 

1 R.Borghini, Il Riposo, Florence, 1584, p. 604. 

2 Privitera, op. cit., 1996, p. 120, cat. no. 27, illustrated. 

3 Ibid., pp. 118–19, cat. no. 26, illustrated. 

4 Ibid., p. 163, cat. no. 68, illustrated. 



7 Inv. 1998.73. 

8 Ibid., cat. nos., 35–41, all illustrated. 

6 PAOLO FARINATI 

1 P. Buscaroli and M. Praz (eds.), C. Ripa, Iconologia, 1992 

(first published in Rome, 1593), pp. 436–37: Donna la quale 

con la destra mano tiene un freno, con la sinistra un tempo 

di horologio et a canto vi tiene un Elefante. 

2 Inv. SL 5224.72. 

3 Inv. 4856. 

4 Inv. 62.119.9. 

7 ANTONIO VIVIANI, 

CALLED IL SORDO DI URBINO 

1 C. Acidini Luchinat, Taddeo e Federico Zuccari fratelli pittori 

del Cinquecento, Milan, 1999, II, pp. 37–39. 

2 P. Tosini, Girolamo Muziano, 1532–1592: dalla maniera alla 

natura, Rom, 2008, pp. 175–77 and pp. 360–65, cat. A 15. 

3 See L. Mochi Onori, “Antonio Viviani,” in P. Dal Poggetto 

(ed.), Le arti nelle Marche al tempo di Sisto V, Cinisello 

Balsamo, 1992, pp. 328–30; C. Monbeig Goguel, “Les deux 

“Antonio da Urbino” elèves de Barocci: autour de quelques 

dessins identifiée d’Antonio Cimatori et une proposition 

pour Antonio Viviani,” in M. Di Giampaolo (ed.), Dal disegno 

all’opera compiuta, Perugia, 1992, pp. 109–22; M. R. Valazzi, 

“Antonio Viviani detto il Sordo di Urbino,” in A. M. Ambrosini 

Massari and M. Cellini (eds.), Nel segno di Barocci, Milan, 

2005, pp. 114–27. 

4 G. Scavizzi, “Gli affreschi della Scala Santa e alcune aggiunte 

al tardomanierismo romano,” in Bollettino d’arte, 4. ser., 45, 

1960, p. 327; A. Zuccari, I pittori di Sisto V, Rome, 1992, pp. 

69, 96, pl. XXVII. 

5 J. Gere, Taddeo Zuccaro. His development studied in his 

drawings, London, 1969, p. 138, cat. no. 22, pl. 94. 

8 FRANCESCO VANNI 

1 L. Marracci, Vita della ven. Madre Passitea Crogi senese, 

fondatrice del Monasterio della Religiose Cappuccine 

nella città di Siena, Rome, 1669. 

2 Inv. 2226; see Viatte, op. cit., cat. no. 524, illustrated. 

3 Inv. 4705 S. 

4 Inv. 3329 bis. 

5 P. Misciattelli, “Passitea Crogi e un suo ritratto inedito,” 

in La Diana, 1934, p. 194, pl. 1. 

9 VESPASIANO STRADA 

1 F. Viatte et al., L’Oeil du connaisseur. Dessins italiens du 

Louvre. Hommage à Philip Pouncey, exhibition catalogue, 

Musée du Louvre Paris 1992, cat. no. 101, illustrated. 

2 F. Grisolia, “Per Giovan Battista Lombardelli, Pasquale Cati 

e Vespasiano Strada disegnatori,” in Paragone, 61, 2010, 

ser. 3, 92/93, pp. 3–39, figs. 29–33.V. Birke, J. Kertész, Die 

italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina, I, Vienna, 1994, 

cat. no. 809, illustrated. 

10 GIOVANNI FRANCESCO BARBIERI, 

CALLED IL GUERCINO 

1 See, for instance, D. Mahon and N. Turner, The drawings of 

Guercino in the collection of Her Majesty The Queen at 

Windsor Castle, Cambridge, 1989, cat. nos 42–43, pls. 43–44. 

2 Mr. Nicholas Turner suggested this date to a previous owner 

of the drawing. 

3 The Samian Sibyl at the Palazzo Reale, Genoa (1653), for 

instance, is resting her chin on her left arm. 

4 A. Calabi and A. de Vesme, Francesco Bartolozzi, catalogue 

des estampes et notice biographique d’après les manuscrits 

de A. de Vesme entièrement réformés et complétés d’une 

étude critique par A. Calabi, Milan, 1928, cat. no. 2160.II. 

5 Ibid., 2140.II. 

11 FRA SEMPLICE DA VERONA 

1 The first was made in Rome just after the beatification for 

the Church of San Bonaventura (c. 1626, the painting is 

today at Ronciglione). Then came the Redentore altarpiece, 

followed by pictures for the Capuchin churches at Bassano 

di Grappa (1631), Padua, Parma (dated 1636), and a picture 

now in the d’Arco di Bagno collection at Mantua (1640). 

His last painting of the subject was likely that made for the 

order’s church at Lugano. See M. Karpowicz, “Quadri nella 

chiesa dei Cappuccini di Lugano: Ortensio Crespi, Fra 

Semplice da Verona e Carlo Innocenzo Carloni,” in Arte 

Lombarda, 113–14, 1995, p. 109, figs. 8 (Mantua), and 9 

(Lugano); and S. Morét, “Alcuni disegni sconosciuti di Fra 

Semplice da Verona a Würzburg,” in Arte veneta, 63, 2006, 

pp. 218–19, figs. 4 (Parma), 5 (Mantua), and 7 (Padua). 

2 D. Benati, “Quadri e disegni di fra Semplice da Verona, 

cappuccino,” in Arte cristiana, 82, 1994, p. 432, fig. 14. 

3 Ibid. For an illustration of the ex-Scholz drawing see 

M. Muraro, Disegni veneti della collezione Janos Scholz, 

exhibition catalogue, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice, 1957, 

cat. no. 49, illustrated (as attr. to Pietro Vecchia). 

4 Di Giampaolo, op. cit., p. 319, fig. 3. 

5 D. Lachenmann, “Two Preparatory Drawings by Fra 

Semplice da Verona,” in Master Drawings, XXX, 1992, no. 2, 

pp. 210–15. 

6 R. Contini, “Berlino per Fra Semplice,” in Arte veneta, 63, 

2006 (2007), pp. 208–16. 

7 Ibid., p. 208, fig. 1. 

8 Morét, op. cit., pp. 218–19, figs. 3 and 6. 

12 SIMONE CANTARINI, CALLED IL PESARESE 

1 Published at Genoa, Pavoni, 1607. 

2 A. Mazzanti, V. Rizzo, Memorie dell’organo di Santo Stefano 

a Campi…, Florence, 1992; the engravings are by Marco 

Zignani. 

3 Inv. F.P. 3977. 

4 A. M. Ambrosini Massari in A. M. Ambrosini Massari, 

L. Marques, and R. Morselli, Disegni italiani della Biblioteca 

Nacional di Rio de Janeiro. La collezione Costa e Silva, 

Milan, 1995, pp. 145, 147, cat. no. 89, illustrated (tentatively 

titled Alexander and Roxana). 

5 Inv. II/310; see A. M. Ambrosini Massari, in A. Emiliani (ed.), 

Simone Cantarini detto il Pesarese 1612–1648, exhibition 

catalogue, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, 1997, p. 295, 

cat. no. II. 82, illustrated. 

6 A. Colombi Ferretti, Simone Cantarini, Modena, 1992, 

pp. 129–30. 

13 ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT 

1 H. Miedema (ed.), Karel van Mander, The lives of the 

illustrious Netherlandish and German painters from the first 

edition of the Schilder-boeck (1603–1604), Doornspijk, 1994, 

I, p. 450. 

2 Inv. PD166–1936; J. Bolten, Abraham Bloemaert: The 

Drawings, Leiden, 2007, I, p. 363, cat. nos. 1150–1311, II., 

pp. 389–412, all illustrated. 

3 Ibid. I, p. 368, cat. no. 1162, II, p. 393, illustrated. 

4 Ibid. I, p. 369, cat. no. 1167, II, p. 393, illustrated. 

5 For the painting of Saint Veronica see M. Roethlisberger, 

Abraham Bloemaert and his Sons, Doornspijk, 1993, I, 

pp. 137–39, cat. no. 90, II, fig. 155. 

6 Briquet, no. 1314. 

7 Inv. 975.4.518. 

8 Inv. 83.GB.375. 

9 Inv. RP-T-1984-1. 

14 CHARLES DE LA FOSSE 

1 Gustin-Gomez, op. cit., p. 70, cat. no. P102, ill. 

2 Ibid., p. 113, cat. no. P170. 

3 Ibid., p. 98. 

4 Ibid., pp. 114–115, cat. nos. P171–72, both illustrated. 

90

NOTES 

15 LUDOVICO GIMIGNANI 

1 Inv. FC 127216 verso, see U.V. Fischer Pace, Disegni die 

G iacinto e Ludovico Gimignani nelle collezioni del 

Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, Rome, 1979, 


2 N. Turner, Italian Drawings in the British Museum, Roman 

Baroque Drawings, London, 1999, I, cat. nos. 128 

(inv. FAWK, 5211.57, here illustrated), and 129 (inv. 

1946,0713.834). The connection with the British Museum 

drawings was first kindly noted by Mr. Hugo Chapman of 

the British Museum. 

3 Inv. FN 174 (12910), see Fischer Pace, op. cit., cat. no. 258, 

illustrated. 

20 CLAUDE-JOSEPH VERNET 

1 The Castel Nuovo in Naples (inv. 1976.334.1), Bridge in the 

Campagna (inv. 1976.334.2). 

2 Ruins of the Temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli (inv. 67.256). 

3 Conisbee, op. cit. 

4 A View of Posillipo from the same album sold in London, 

Sotheby’s, 8 July 1998, lot 247, illustrated, and another View 

of Posillipo, smaller in scale, sold at New York, Sotheby’s, 

26 January 2011, lot 641, illustrated. 

5 Sale: London, Christie’s, 4 July 1995, lots 139 and 141, 

illustrated. 

21 PIETRO GIACOMO PALMIERI 

23 HUBERT ROBERT 

1 D. Diderot, “Salon of 1767,“ in J. Goodman (ed.), Diderot 

on Art, New Haven and London, 1995, II, pp. 198–99. 

2 J. de Cayeux, Les Hubert Roberts de la Collection Veyrenc 

au Musée de Valence, Valence, 1985, cat. no. 81, illustrated. 

3 A. Brejon de Lavergnée et al., Masterworks from the Musée 

des Beaux-Arts, Lille, exhibition catalogue, New York, the 

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992-93, cat. no. 80, illustrated. 

4 See A. M. Bietti Sestieri, Museo Nazionale Romano, The 

Baths of Diocletian, Rome, 2002. 

5 Ibid, p. 4. 

24 LOUIS GAUFFIER 

Bravo and B. Paolozzi Strozzi, Luigi Sabatelli (1772–1850), 

disegni e incisioni, exhibition catalogue, Gabinetto Disegni 

e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence, 1978, cat. nos. 53-60, all 

illustrated. 

3 Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, inv. 425/13. 




7 Del Bravo and Paolozzi Strozzi, op. cit., cat. no. 57, fig. 58. 

8 Ibid., cat. no. 58, fig. 59. 

9 Ibid., cat. no. 59, fig. 60. 

10 Ibid., cat. no. 56, fig. 57. 


12 Del Bravo and Paolozzi Strozzi, op. cit., cat. no. 55, 

fig. 56. 

16 NICCOLÒ RICCIOLINI 

1 J.J. Winckelmann, Il bello dell’arte, Turin, 1983, p. 86; 

L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica dell’Italia (1795– 1796) (ed. M. 

Capucci), Florence, 1968 (1809), I, p. 392. 

2 See M. B. Guerrieri Borsoi, “Contributi allo studio di Niccolò 

Ricciolini,” in Bollettino d’arte, 73, 1988, 50/51, pp. 161–85; 

idem, “Un disegno inedito di Niccolò Ricciolini,” in Bollettino 

d’arte, 74, 1989, 58, pp. 67–68; V. Casale, “La dinastia dei 

pittori Ricciolini,” in Dal disegno all’opera compiuta, 

proceeds of the conference (Torgiano, 1987), Perugia, 1992, 

pp. 171–91; S. Morét, Römische Barockzeichnungen im 

Martin-von-Wagner-Museum der Universität Würzburg, 

Regensburg, 2012, cat. nos. 342–44, illustrated. 

3 One shows Cardinal Giuseppe Colonna as a prisoner of the 

Turks, the other a Cardinal following the Construction of a 

Building. 

4 Morét, op. cit., cat. no. 342, illustrated. 

5 V. Casale e F. Petrucci (ed.), Il Museo del barocco romano. 

La Collezione Lemme a Palazzo Chigi in Ariccia, exhibition 

catalogue, Palazzo Chigi, Ariccia, 2007, cat. no. 57. 

17 GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO 

1 A. Morassi, A complete catalogue of the paintings of G.B. 

Tiepolo, including pictures by his pupils and followers, 

wrongly attributed to him, London, 1962, p. 44, illustrated. 

2 G. Knox, Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo, A Study and 

Catalogue Raisonné of the Chalk Drawings, Oxford, 1980, I, 

cat. no. M529, II, pl. 176. 

3 A. Rizzi, The Etchings of the Tiepolos, London, 1971, pl. 166. 

4 G. Knox et al., Tiepolo. A bicentenary exhibition 1770–1970. 

Drawings, mainly from American collections, by Giambattista 

Tiepolo and the members of his circle, Fogg Art Museum, 

Cambridge (Mass.), 1970, p. 211. 

19 JEAN-MARTIAL FRÉDOU DE LA BRETONNIERE 

1 Inv. MV 4398. 

2 N. Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, pp. 186–88, 

illustrated. 

3 Inv. RF 12000. 

4 Inv. RF 1940.19 

1 M.T. Caracciolo, “Dessins du Settecento bolonaise au 

musée des Arts décoratifs de Lyon. Œuvres inédites ou 

nouvellement attribuées,” in Revue du Louvre, 43, 1993, 4, 

pp. 25–43, and especially pp. 40–41. 

2 Palmieri moved from his native Bologna first to Parma 

(c. 1770), then to Paris (1773– 78), and ultimately to Turin. 

See A. di Vesme, Schede Vesme. L’arte in Piemonte dal sec. 

XVI al sec. XVIII, III, Turin, 1968; V. Natale, “Pietro Giacomo 

Palmieri. Bologna 1735– Torino 1804,” in V. Bertone (ed.), 

Disegni del XIX secolo della Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna 

Contemporanea di Torino. Fogli scelti dal Gabinetto Disegni 

e Stampe, Florence, 2009, I, pp. 3–9; C. Travisonni, “Palmieri, 

Pietro Giacomo,” in Dizionario Biografico degli italiani, 

Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1960 to present, 

in press (with earlier literature). 

3 Galleria Dipinti Antichi Gilberto Zabert, Disegni antichi di 

maestri italiani e stranieri dal XVI al XIX secolo, exhibition 

catalogue, Turin, 1972, 4, cat. no. 34; and sale: New York, 

Sotheby’s, Old Master Drawings, 16 January 1986, lot 153, 

illustrated. 

4 Travisonni, “Du Tillot…,” op. cit. 

22 JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD 

1 Ananoff, op. cit., cat. nos. 103, 111, 112, 113, 121, 122, 123, 

126, 127, 2036 and 2037. Seven of the portrait roundels are 

of Fragonard and his family and are conserved as a group in 

the Louvre. 

2 Idem, op. cit., IV, p. 57, cat. no. 2036; and Roland-Michel, 

op. cit., p. 443. 

3 Darras, op. cit., pp. 85–86. 

4 Ibid. 

5 Ananoff, op. cit, cat. no. 123, illustrated. 

6 Ibid., cat. no. 2037, illustrated. 

7 J.-P. Cuzin, Fragonard. Life and Work, Fribourg and New 

York, 1988, pp. 16668. 

8 R. Coulon, “Pierre-Jacques Bergeret, Fils, 1742–1807,” 

in Bulletin et Mémoires de la Société Archéologique de 

Bordeaux, LXVIII, 1970–73, pp. 187–203. 

9 Ananoff, op. cit., cat. no. 103, fig. 48, illustrated. 

1 The Hope painting is considered to be the painting now in 

the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Poitiers. It is thought to be that 

sold at the Jauffret sale in Paris, 29 April 1811, lot 17, bought 

by Marthe (or Mautre). It was purchased for the Musée 

Nationaux in a sale in Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 25 June 1943, and 

transferred to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Poitiers in 1949. 

See D. Watkin and P. Hewat-Jaboar, Thomas Hope, Regency 

Designer, New Haven and London, 2008, p. 362. 

2 Ibid., p. 362. The others are Ulysses and Nausicaa (Musée de 

Poitiers, inv. 969.4.1), Rest on the Flight into Egypt (Musée 

de Poitiers, inv. 975.1.1), Achilles Discovered among the 

Daughters of Lycomedes and Hector Reproving Paris. 

3 R. Rosenblum, Transformations in late Eighteenth Century 

Art, Princeton, 1967, p. 86. 

4 Anonymous artist, Patriotic Women donating their Jewels to 

the National Assembly in 1789, aquatint, Vizille, Musée de la 

Révolution Française. 

25 FELICE GIANI 

1 C. Helms, Fénelon, selected writings, New York-Mahwah, 

2006, p. 55. 

2 Letter dated 14 November 2003. 

3 A. Ottani Cavina, Felice Giani, 1758– 1823, e la cultura di fine 

secolo, 2 vols., Milan, 1999, II, pp. 652, 656, cat. no. D. 35–36, 

figs. 925–26. 

4 Ibid., II, p. 830, cat. nos. A1.532-34. 

5 Inv. 1901-39-3389. Ibid., cat. no. A1.532. 

26 LUIGI SABATELLI 

1 The group included portraits of the parents and their sons 

Giovanni (b. 1803, aged 5), Alessandro (b. 1804, aged 4), 

and Stanislao (b. 1813, aged 3). The couple also had another 

son, Giovanfrancesco (1800–1833), and three daughters, 

Teresa (b. 1802), Leopoldina (b. 1811), and Giulia (b. 1813). 

See L. Passerini, Genealogia e storia della famiglia Ricasoli, 

Florence, 1861, pp. 109–10. The portrait of Stanislao 

was made in red and black chalk in 1817, following the 

long-standing Florentine tradition of portrait drawings in 

this technique, perhaps most famously espoused in the 

seventeenth century by Carlo Dolci. 

2 For Sabatelli’s portrait drawings see the seminal article by 

U. Ojetti, “Ritratti di Luigi Sabatelli,” in Pan, rassegna di 

Lettere, Arte e Musica, II, no. 1, 1934, pp. 231–52; and C. Del 

27 BARTOLOMEO PINELLI 

1 Such attacks on brigands became a subject in painting in its 

own right, perhaps most notably in Horace Vernet’s Italian 

Brigands surprised by Papal Troops (1830); Pinelli, too, 

depicted similar scenes, see Fagiolo and Marini, op. cit., 

p. 138, cat. no. 130, illustrated. 

2 Ibid., pp. 289–96, all illustrated. 

3 Ibid., p. 308. 

4 Ibid., p. 310. 

5 Ibid. pp. 122–30, cat. nos. 107–17, illustrated. 

6 Ibid., p. 138, figs. 129–30. 

7 Ibid. p. 133, fig. 122 (not signed and dated). 

28 JOHN FLAXMAN 

1 A second edition followed in 1838. 

2 We wish to thank Prof. David Bindman for his generous help 

in identifying this drawing. 

3 D. Bindman (ed.), John Flaxman, R.A., exhibition catalogue, 

London, Royal Academy, 1979, pp. 133–35. 

4 Ibid., p. 132. 

5 These were possibly the masons Robert Janyns 

(fl. 1438–1464) and William Vertue (fl. 1501–d. 1527). 

6 R. Flaxman, Lectures on Sculptures, reprinted, London, 1865, 

p. 47. 

7 See, for instance, Flaxman’s large drawings of the Massacre 

of the Britons at Stonehenge, based upon Thomas 

Chatterton’s poem Battle of Hastyngs, a Procession of Early 

English Saints, and Medieval Scene, all at the Fitzwilliam 

Museum, Cambridge (Bindman, op. cit., cat. nos., 9–11, 

illustrated), and another drawing of a Medieval Scene, 

recently acquired by the Louvre from W. M. Brady, New York 

(inv. RF 54654). 

29 JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE INGRES 

1 Naef, op. cit., cat. no. 349, illustrated. 

2 J. Turner (ed.), Master Drawings, the Woodner Collection, 

exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London, 1987, p. 228. 

92

NOTES 

INDEX 

30 CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH 

1 Grummt, op. cit., cat. no. 872, illustrated. 

2 Ibid., pp. 23–24. 

3 Ibid., cat nos. 629–30, illustrated. 

4 Ibid., cat no. 573, illustrated. 

5 Ibid., cat no. 660, illustrated. 

6 W. Hofmann, Caspar David Friedrich 1774–1840, exhibition 

catalogue, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 1974, 


7 H. Börsch-Supan and K. W. Jähnig, Caspar David Friedrich. 

Gemälde, Druckgraphik und bildmäßige Zeichnungen, 

Munich 1973, cat no. 205, illustrated. 

8 Grummt, op. cit., cat. no. 573, illustrated. 

32 ADOLPH VON MENZEL 

1 H. von Tschudi, Adolph von Menzel. Abbildungen seiner 

Gemälde und Studien, Munich, 1905, cat. no. 673. 

2 Ibid., cat. no. 676. 

3 Woman in Street Dress holding a Parasol, inv. 1987.562. 

4 Woman in a Crushed Velvet Hat, inv. 1997.280. 

5 Seated Woman in a Hat holding an Umbrella, inv. 24638. 

6 P. Meyerheim, Adolph von Menzel. Erinnerungen, Berlin, 

1906, p. 41. 

7 M.U. Riemann-Reyher, in C. Kleisch and M.U. Riemann- 

Reyher (eds.), Menzel (1815–1905), ‘la névrose du vrai,’ 

exhibition catalogue, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 1996, p. 452. 

33 ADOLF HIRÉMY HIRSCHL 

1 175 × 98 cm, sold at Turin, Della Rocca, 22 April 2010, lot 

677, illustrated; see Galleria L’Antonina, Mostra personale e 

vendita delle opera di pittura di Adolfo Hiremy. Pitture 

ad olio, acquarelli, pastelli, disegni a matita, acqueforti, 

monotipie, exhibition and sale catalogue, Rome, 1938, 

cat. no. 29, pl. IV; and sale: Milan, Finarte-Semenzato, 

Gli Arredi di Pallazzo Lazzaroni, 23 June 2003, lot 195, 

illustrated. 

2 C. Virgilio, W. Zettl, and J. Garms, Adolf Hirémy Hirschl 

(Temesvar 1860– Roma 1933). Disegni, acquerelli e pastelli, 

exhibition catalogue, Galleria Carlo Virgilio, Rome, 1982, 

pp. 45-49. 

3 C. McCorquodale, “Adolf Hirémy Hirschl 1860–1933,” in 

Apollo, 126, 1987, p. 205. 

4 Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., Adolf Hirémy Hirschl 1860– 1933, 

exhibition catalogue, London, 1987. 

5 Virgilio, Zettl, Garms, op. cit., cat. nos. 101–02, pls. XXXVI–VII, 

and unnumbered colour plate; Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., 

op. cit., cat. nos. 25–27, partially illustrated, and colour pl. II. 

6 Virgilio, Zettl, Garms, op. cit., cat. no. 96, pl. XXXIV. 

7 Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., op. cit., cat. no. 23, illustrated. 

34 JULES PASCIN 

1 Rosemarie Napolitano and Tom Krohg have kindly 

confirmed the authenticity of this work. 

2 Y. Hemin, G. Krohg, K. Perls, and A. Rambert, Pascin, 

catalogue raisonné, dessins, aquarelles, pastels, peintures, 

dessins érotiques, II, Paris, 1987, cat. nos. 350–51, 353; IV, 

Paris, 1991, cat. nos. 240–49, and V, cat. nos. 307, 328, all 

illustrated. 

3 D. Vierny, B. Lorquin et al., Pascin: Le magicien du reel, 

exhibition catalogue, Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol, 

Paris, 2007, p. 79, illustrated. 

35 ELIOT HODGKIN 

1 His cousin is the abstract painter, Howard Hodgkin (b. 1932). 

2 E. Hodgkin, “Painter’s Purpose,” in The Studio, July 1957, 

p. 6. 

BAUMGARTNER, JOHANN WOLFGANG 18 

BLOEMAERT, ABRAHAM 13 

CANTARINI, SIMONE 12 

DE LA FOSSE, CHARLES 14 

FARINATI, PAOLO 6 

FLAXMAN, JOHN 28 

FRAGONARD, JEAN-HONORÉ 22 

FRÉDOU DE LA BRETONNIERE, JEAN-MARTIAL 19 

FRIEDRICH, CASPAR DAVID 30 

GAUFFIER, LOUIS 24 

GIANI, FELICE 25 

GIMIGNANI, LUDOVICO 15 

GUERCINO, IL 10 

HIRSCHL, ADOLF HIRÉMY 33 

HODGKIN, ELIOT 35 

INGRES, JEAN-AUGUSTE-DOMINIQUE 29 

MACCHIETTI, GIROLAMO 4 | 5 

MENZEL, ADOLPH VON 32 

MILLET, JEAN-FRANCOIS 31 

PALMIERI, PIETRO GIACOMO 21 

PASCIN, JULES 34 

PINELLI, BARTOLOMEO 27 

RICCIOLINI, NICCOLÒ 16 

ROBERT, HUBERT 23 

ROMANO, GIULIO 1 

FRA SEMPLICE DA VERONA 11 

SABATELLI, LUIGI 26 

STRADA, VESPASIANO 9 

TIEPOLO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA 17 

VANNI, FRANCESCO 8 

VASARI, GIORGIO 2 | 3 

VERNET, CLAUDE-JOSEPH 20 

VIVIANI, ANTONIO 7 

94

© Katrin Bellinger, Munich 2013; Florian Härb, London 2013 

Cover: cat.no. 4 

Design and layout: WIGEL, Munich 

Origination: Reproline Genceller, Munich 

Printing and binding: sellier, Freising 

Printed in Germany on acid free paper

Master Drawings 2013 - Colnaghi

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