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Spaightwood Galleries
17th-Century Italian Drawings
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Over the last decade, we have been following our love of old master drawings and acquiring as many good ones as we could find and afford, including a number by Italian artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and their contemporary followers, Marcantonio Raimondi, Andrea Schiavone, Annibale Carracci, Federico Zuccaro, Cherubini Alberti, Guercino, Simone Cantarini, Pier Francesco Mola, Paolo di Matteis, F. Zanara, Matteo Rosselli, Jan Baptiste de Wael, and works by contemporary followers of Veronese, Tintoretto, and Domenichino. Taken together, they offer the possibility of seeing how the enormous impact of artists like Michelangelo, Raphael (and his chief follower, Giulio Romano), Parmigianino, and the great Venetian masters, like Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese, changed the shape of Italian Renaissance art, leading to 17th-century masters like the Carracci, Domenichino, Guercino, Guido Reni (and his chief assistant, Simone Cantarini) who finally turned their collective backs on the Mannerists and sought a new classicism of their own. Taken individually, however, they offer the opportunity to discover or rediscover the joys of drawing when practised by great and near great and even just very good artists. Some of these works appear to be finished drawings, others attempts to conceptualize an artistic problem to be solved, still others models for members of the master's workshop to execute in whole or in part under the master's supervision.
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Matteo Rosselli (Italian, 1578-1651), attributed), Woman and child asleep in a landscape. Red chalk on cream laid paper, c. 1610. Rosselli was a successful painter of the late Florentine Counter-Maniera and the early Baroque. On 26 February, 1599, he was inducted to the Accademia del Disegno. His most important commissions include frescoes on the lives of Servite monks (1614-18) in the Palazzo Pitti and in the Cloister of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata; a Madonna and Child with Saint Francis altarpiece for the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Florence; and an Adoration of the Magi (1607) for the Church of Sant'Andrea in Montevarchi. He painted a Crucifixion (1613) now in the parish church at Scarperia. He painted a Last Supper (1614) now in Conservatorio di San Pier Martire. After Henri IV's assassination, he was commissioned to make two commemorative paintings of events in the life of the French king. He also completed an Assumption (1613) for the church of San Domenico in Pistoia. He was also chosen by Michelangelo Buonarroti the younger to execute a number of frescoes for the Casa Buonarroti based on events of Michelangelo's life. In 1621, he was selected to paint a Triumph of David (Pitti) and a Lot and his Daughters and Tobias and The Angel (Galleria Corsini). in 1622–1623 was commissioned by Leopoldo de’ Medici to execute several frescoes for the Casino di San Marco. Leopoldo also commissioned from Rosselli the allegorical paintings (1622) in the Sala della Stufa in Palazzo Pitti. He frescoed in reception rooms of the Villa di Poggio Imperiale with scenes portraying European emperors amid biblical and historical scenes (1619-1623). He painted a Madonna of the Rosary (1649) for the Cathedral of Pietrasanta and a canvas of The Mission of Saint Paul in Damascus for the Duomo di Volterra. The largest collection of Rosselli drawings is contained within the Louvre Museum, Paris, many of which are preliminary sketches for other works, suggesting that this might have been intended for a Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Although our large drawing has seen some hard wear about the edges, this central parts of this charming drawing are in good condition and amply demonstrate Rosselli's skill as a draftsman. Image size: 285x443mm. Price: $8500.
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Italian School (late 16th-early 17th century). Apollo playing the lyre on Mt. Parnassus for the Muses. Pen and brown ink and gray wash on cream laid paper. There are three areas where the paper has suffered losses and those losses patched with pieces of other drawings (left center, upper right above the head of the 2nd dancer from left, and bottom right in the foliage). Laid down on card stock with a not-quite legible attribution ending in "chino." Image size: 260x387mm. Price: $2750.
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Italian School (early-mid 17th century). Venus warns Adonis not to hunt dangerous animals. Pen and brown ink and wash on cream laid paper. Venus accompanied by Cupid and seated in her chariot pulled by some very large doves warns Adonis to beware large savage animals like the boar that will shortly kill him, but to stick with small harmless ones. Adonis will disregard her warning and perish. Image size: 168x227mm. Price: SOLD.
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Bolognese School (early-mid 17th century), Lot and his Daughters. Pen and brown ink on cream laid paper mounted on laid paper. At Abraham's urging, God selected Lot (Abraham's nephew) and his family as the only just people in Sodom to be saved. Although he warned them not to look back at the destruction of Sodom as they fled, Lot's wife did and was turned into a pillar of salt. Later that night, Lot's daughters, fearing that they were the only ones left alive in the world, got Lot drunk and then slept with him in order to repopulate the earth. This nicely-ironic story, like many others, is a reminder that one ought not to trust to his or her own virtue but to God's mercy. It became a more popular subject after the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Image size: 236x183mm. Price: $9500.
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Italian School, 17th-century, Study of a Prophet. Brush and brown ink and wash drawing on cream laid paper. There is a study of a figure on the verso. Image size: 195x103mm. Price: SOLD
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Antonio Busca (Milan, 1625-1684), Study of a Prophet Black and white chalk drawing on grayish-tan laid paper. Attributed to Busca in pen and black ink lower left recto and in pencil to the right and below the prophet's feet. Busca studied with Ercole Procaccini before travelling to Rome in 1650-51 with Giovanni Ghisolfini, where he came under the influence of Pietro da Cortona. Our drawing is a design for a pendentive, possibly in preparation for a commission to paint frescoes with prophets and angels in the cupola of the family chapel in San Vittore al Corpo in Milan in 1669. Two of his drawings were published by Ugo Ruggeri in Disegni Lombardi (Venice, 1982), numbers 148-49. Image size: 208x156mm. Price: $5250.
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Pier Francesco Mola (Italian, 1612-1666), attributed to, Adoration of the Shepherds. Pen and brown ink and wash on thin laid paper, c. 1650. Lower right corner detached, holes and thin spots across the top of the drawing where the work was once glued down. Roseline Bacou, Great Drawings of the Louvre Museum: The Italian Drawings (NY: George Braziller, 1968), notes (fig. 92) that "Pier Francesco Mola did most of his early work in Northern Italy and did not go to Rome until 1642. The sensibility of his eclectic nature is disclosed in his poetic evocations of landscape backgrounds which show the influence of the Venetian school and of Guercino's luminism." Ever since one of Mola's paintings sold for almost $10,000,000 the price of his drawings has risen sharply. Image size: 237x203mm. Price: $18,500.
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Bolognese School, 17th-century, Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Pen and brown ink drawing on cream laid paper mounted on laid paper; a number of small holes in the paper have been made less unsightly be coloring the backing sheet. (It really isn't as bad to the eye as the photo makes it seem). There is a pencil attribution to Ludovico Carracci on the verso. Image size: 184x235mm. Price: $2950.
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Italian School, 17th-century, The Transfiguration. Red chalk drawing on thin cream laid paper. Watermark: Snake with a fleur-de-lys and the letters BB. Inscribed "No. 16" in red chalk upper right recto. Horizontal fold visible about midway vertically. A powerful presentation of this important event from the life of Christ when the Apostles Peter, John, and James suddenly saw Jesus clothed in light with Moses on one side of him and Elijah on the other. Image size: 335x210mm. Price: SOLD.
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Paolo di Matteis (Italian, 1662-1728), The Last Judgment. Pencil and wash drawing formerly attributed to Luca Giordano. From the collections of W. Konig and Dr. Geiger. The Getty Museum gives a brief biography as follows:
Paolo de Matteis first trained in Luca Giordano's workshop in Naples. Before 1683 he launched his career in Rome, where, according to legend, he was "discovered" by the Spanish ambassador while copying altarpieces in Saint Peter's Cathedral. When the ambassador was nominated Viceroy of Naples, de Matteis followed him there. Responding to changing tastes and Carlo Maratta's influence, de Matteis developed a delicate, graceful manner that broke with the vigor of the Baroque. Within ten years, his reputation was international, rivaling that of Francesco Solimena. From 1702 to 1705, de Matteis worked for the French court in Paris, where he met influential nobles and bankers; the elegant French style confirmed the direction his painting had already taken. Returning to Naples, which the Austrians had seized from Spain, de Matteis accepted commissions from both the Austrian aristocracy and intellectuals and nobility abroad. Renowned for his speed and virtuosity, he also painted decorative schemes for Neapolitan churches. In 1712 the third Earl of Shaftesbury, a renowned aesthetician, hired de Matteis to paint a canvas according to the Earl's own aesthetic theories. Between 1723 and 1725, de Matteis lived in Rome, where he received a commission from Pope Innocent XIII. In his final years, he made models for sculpture in silver. Several of di Matteis' drawings are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Image size: 237x282mm. Price: SOLD.
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F. Zanara (Italian, active late 17th century), Glorification of the Virgin. Sanguine drawing for a ceiling painting. Note the correction on the sheet of paper inserted into the drawing. From the collection of W. Konig. Image size: 345x345mm. Price: $5250.
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Italian School (17th century), Head of an old man turned to the right. Drawing in red chalk on thin laid paper. There is a wonderful clarity to the face of this man, recalling that of Domenichino and Guercino. The line is delicate but sure, the presentation is direct: this man is who he is with no apologies. Perhaps a study for a painting by the as yet unidentified artist. Image size: 185x143mm. Price: $4750.
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Anonymous, Lucretia (in the manner of Carlo Maratta). Drawing in red and black chalk heightened with white on wove paper. Drawn on machine-made paper at the beginning of the 19th century in the manner of the Italian Baroque artist, Carlo Maratta (Rome, 1625-1713). The drawing bears the stamp of a Russian collector, Czar Nicholas II! (The stamp actually reads "Romanov Collection," suggesting that after the Russian Revolution and the death of the Romanov family, a stamp was made to indicate what had been in the Russian Imperial Print Collection; before the Revolution, the stamp would have said something like "Collection of the Czar.") Old restored tear lower left. Image size: 310x220mm. Price: $4500.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net. We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
Visiting hours: Saturday and Sunday noon to 6 pm and other times by arrangement. Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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