Oeuvres sur Papier - Works on Paper - Jean-Luc Baroni & Marty de Cambiaire - 2022

Federico Zuccaro
San Angelo in Vado 1540/1541 – Ancône 1609
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Portrait d’une jeune femme
Pierre noire et sanguine <strong>sur</strong> papier brun.
170 x 120 mm (6 11 /16 x 4 ¾ in.)
Provenance
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Londres (Lugt 2364).
Cette délicieuse étude de jeune femme, inédite
jusqu’à présent et publiée pour la première fois ici,
est apparue récemment <strong>sur</strong> le marché français, fin
2019. C’est une image soignée et contrairement à
beaucoup des portraits à la pierre noire et sanguine
de Federico Zuccaro, celui-ci fait l’objet d’un traitement
particulièrement précis dans le visage de la
jeune fille, dont l’expression d’intelligence frappe
le spectateur. Il s’agit selon toute probabilité d’un
pendant du portrait d’un jeune homme, à peu près
du même âge (Fig. 1), portant également une fraise
et conservé dans les collections de la National Gallery
of Scotland (Inv. D 1654) 1 . Les deux œuvres
sont de dimensions similaires, la feuille d’Édimbourg
me<strong>sur</strong>ant 178 x 118 mm et celle-ci 170 x 120 mm.
1. F. Zuccaro, Portrait d’un jeune homme,
Édimbourg, National Gallery of Scotland.
This lovely sketch of a young woman, previously
unrecorded, appeared on the French auction
market in late 2019. It is a careful rendering by
Federico Zuccaro and unlike many of his red and
black portraits displays an exacting finesse in the
modelling of the face of what comes across to the
viewer as a very intelligent young sitter. It is in
all likelihood a pendant to his portrait of a young
man of roughly the same age (Fig. 1) also wearing
a ruffed collar in the collection of the National
Gallery of Scotland (inv. no. D 1654). 1 The two
drawings are very similar in size, the Edinburgh
sketch mea<strong>sur</strong>ing 178 x 118 mm. and the present
work 170 x 120 mm. They are executed in the same
materials and the artist poses both sitters frontally
and looking offstage to their left. Both sitters seem
to be placed before the same source of light that
casts a full shadow behind their right shoulders and
a similar shadow under the left-hand front side of
their collars. The very careful use of the sharpened
chalks allows the artist to define the complicated
folds of the ruffs in the same manner and gently
to suggest a slight rosy tint to the cheeks of each
individual. Further, a close examination of the
execution of the eyes reveals an identical technique
and even the inverted “v” stroke defining the inner
top of both left ears signifies the consistency of the
hand involved. These portraits were unquestionably
done within minutes of one another. Finally, they
also remained together for some time residing in
the voluminous collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds
(1723-1792) before that in Edinburgh passed into
the collections of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-
1830) and finally into the collection of David Laing
(1793-1878).
Additional supporting evidence in favor of
Federico’s authorship of this drawing is found in
comparison with several of his female red and black
chalk portraits. The first is the small (136 x 88 mm)
sketch in the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica (F.C.
129660) of a young woman whose hairstyle and
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