A selection of master drawings 2016

6
Giovanni Andrea Donducci called Il Mastelletta
Bologna 1575 - 1655
Recto: The Preaching of St. John the Baptist
Pen, brown ink, brown wash, squared in black chalk on light blue watermarked laid paper
Verso: Three studies of heads in profile
Red chalk on light blue watermarked laid paper
336 x 225 mm (13 ¼ x 8 ⅞ in.)
The main source for the life of the Bolognese painter
Giovanni Andrea Donducci, better known as
Mastelletta 1 , is the biography by Carlo Cesare Malvasia
who remembers him as an odd, hypochondriac,
antisocial man: «Nemico degli amici, sospettoso con
tutti, in odio a se stesso, fantastico, impraticabile,
peggio insomma che bestia [...] Ritiratosi in una casetta
nel disabitato, in fondo alle Moline, vi si riduceva
straora, acciò non si sapesse, ed osservasse qual fosse la
sua abitazione: vi stava ascosto settimane intere, senza
lasciati vedere» 2 . It’s in these reckless features that
Malvasia, not a great admirer of Mastelletta’s work,
believed he could see traces of also in the paintings
by the Bolognese artist. However, it’s precisely the
uncommon character, sometimes even visionary, that
characterises the creations of Mastelletta, which has so
fascinated the modern critic.
If his paintings have recently been described and
fully reassessed for their uniqueness - in the context
of 17 th century Bolognese painting - for their formal
characteristics, Mastelletta’s drawings instead have
not yet received the same attention, probably due to
their exiguous number. Indeed very few examples of
these are preserved and the famous corpus of sheets
attributed with certainty to Mastelletta comprise only
about ten.
Therefore, The Preaching of the Baptist reveals itself as
a rare work within Mastelletta’s oeuvre. In the biblical
episode, which depicts St. John whilst he announces
the coming of Christ to the crowd, certain formulae
typical of Emilian painting of the end of the 16 th
century can be identified, a style which Mastelletta
always looked at throughout the course of his career.
A passionate admirer of the formal elegance of
Parmigianino (1503-1540) and of Nicolò dell’Abate
(1512-1571) - reminders of their work consistently
reappear in the that of our artist - Mastelletta developed
a style made up of curving lines, and slender, slim,
elegant small figures, like those we see in his paintings
and in the present drawing. The same abundant use of
brown ink applied over the sheet in wide and light
movements, is reminiscent of Emilian graphic art
of the second half of the 16 th century. The pictorial
qualities of The Preaching are directly linked to the
extreme freedom of the Mastelletta’s paintings, which
appear to be almost “improvised” on the canvas,
without the guide of a preparatory drawing.
Verso