17th Century Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Provenance: John Barnard, London (Lugt 1419) or possibly Saint John Dent, London and Milton (Lugt 1438) Unidentified collector’s mark “W,” lower left of the mount (Lugt 2591a) Private Collection, USA. This expressive and boldly executed drawing is a work by Francesco Maffei...

This spectacular red chalk drawing depicts an elderly woman, her eyes bulging, her hand stretched out towards the sky. This disturbing character, who seems close to dementia, and the elongation of her arm with its Mannerist overtones, plunge us into the Florentine artistic milieu of the first half of the 17th century. The proximity of this drawing to some characters in the fresco in the Pitti Palace representing The Muses, Poets and Philosophers chased from Parnassus, the last masterpiece of Giovanni da San Giovanni, leads us to propose an attribution to this artist and a dating of around 1635-1636. 1. Giovanni da San Giovanni, the painter of contradiction We take here the title of the monography dedicated to the artist by Anna Banti in 1977, which remains the reference book for this artist. The son of a notary, Giovanni Mannozzi, known as Giovanni da San Giovanni, abandoned his studies to go to Florence at the age of sixteen, where he entered the studio of Matteo Rosselli (1578 - 1650) around 1609 and enrolled in the Academy of Drawing Arts in 1612. Around 1615 he produced his first known works, mainly frescoes for the city's tabernacles. He became famous in Florence for his originality, combining an obsessive application to the study of drawing and the reading of poetry and history with a disheveled appearance. Between 1619 and 1620 he decorated the facade of the Antella Palace in Piazza Santa Croce, a decoration that still partly survives today. The death of Cosimo II in 1621 put an end to the Florentine building activity and Giovanni da San Giovanni left for Rome to find other sponsors with the painter Francesco Furini...

Provenance: Private Collection, UK After initial training under Justus Suttermans and Vincenzo Dandini, in 1673 Anton Domenico Gabbiani embar...

Preparatory Drawing (sanguine on paper, 42 x 28 cm) by Francesco Furini for the making of the Saint Sebastian, ordered by the prince Lorenzo de' Medic...