18th Century and Earlier Nude Drawings and Watercolors

The attribution to Pompeo Batoni has been confirmed by Professor Francesco Petrucci based upon a photography of the artwork. This impressive study of a nude man belongs to a series ...

Study after the Farnese Hercules Giovan Ambrogio Figino (1548-1608) Black chalk on blue-prepared paper 33 x 23 cm Provenance: Tajan, Drouot Paris, 23 November 2001, lot 11; Private ...

Provenance: Collection from central Italy in the 17th century (Stamp - probably L. 3900 - on the front, top left) Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792), stamped lower right (L. 2364) This mythological drawing from the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds has long been attributed to Pietro da Cortona, as evidenced by the inscriptions at the bottom and on the reverse. While the Italian collection stamp (which predates Reynolds') suggests that this drawing was executed in Italy in the 17th century, it seems to us to be much closer to the drawings produced in Rome in the entourage of Simon Vouet. Its numerous hatchings, evocative of burin work, and its luminous composition lead us to suggest an attribution to Claude Mellan, who befriended Vouet on his arrival in Rome in 1624. 1. The stay in Vouet's studio, an important phase in Claude Mellan's training Claude Mellan was born on May 23, 1598 in Abbeville, where his father worked as a boilermaker and copper planer. In 1615, at the age of 17, he was apprenticed to Jean V Leclerc, a mediocre Parisian engraver. Nine years later, in 1624, he left for Rome with the support of Provencal scholar Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc. Having established contact with the engraver Francesco Villamena (who died two months after his arrival in Rome), Mellan quickly made friends with the painter Simon Vouet, then at the height of his reputation in Rome thanks to his recent appointment as director of the Accademia de San Luca. Simon Vouet and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (known as Le Bernin...

BARTOLOMEO PASSAROTTI (Bologna 1529 - 1592) Study of two legs Pen and brown ink, over black chalk, on paper 34,5 x 21,5 cm Bears lower left the collector mark of Maurice Marignane ...

Untitled (Standing Female Nude) Graphite on paper, c. 1930 Signed bottom right: Lorski (see photo) Sheet size: 9 5/16 x 5 13/16 inches From a sketchbook created while the artist was working in Paris Condition: Good Thin spots verso from previous mounting Soft vertical fold running across image Barely visible on recto Provenance: Estate of the Artist Dawson's Auctioneers and Appraisers, 2001 Amity Art Foundation Boris Lovet-Lorski Lithuanian/Russian/American 1894-1973 Sculptor, painter, and printmaker, Boris Lovet-Lorski was born in Lithuania in 1894. His mother died when he was age three. His father was affluent and owned real estate. Boris grew up in a privileged environment. He studied architecture and then fine arts at the Imperial Academy of Art in Petrograd, Russia (now Saint Petersburg). Following the revolution in 1917 and its aftermath, Boris immigrated to Boston to live with his brother. In the 1920’s, his stylized, Art Deco inspired sculptures, lithographs, and paintings proved to be popular among the American elite. He exhibited frequently, holding his first solo exhibition in Boston, 1920. In the following years, Boris exhibited in New York at Marie Sterner Gallery, Jacques Seligmann Galleries and Wildenstein and Company. He lived in Paris from 1926 to 1932 where he befriended Joseph Hecht, and was exposed to the works of Pablo Picasso, Ossip Zadkine, Contantin Brancusi and Aristide Maillol. In 1932 he returned to America where he became a citizen later in the decade. Lovet-Lorski exhibited in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists (New York), the National Academy of Design (New York), and the Lotos Club (New York), as well as several Parisian salons. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Musée Luxembourg, Bibliotèque Nationale, and the Petit Palais in France, the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the National Gallery in Washington, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (A more extensive list of his works in museums follows) He is considered one of the most successful and recognized sculptors of his generation. His creative influence can be seen in many of his contemporary artists. He died in Los Angeles in 1973. Regarding his iconic Art Deco sculptures of Cretan Dancers: “The stylizing of the Cretan allegories, used in figures of animals such as horses and bulls, symbolizes the ancient power of the South. These figures reveal a spiritual sensuality as he strives to attain a symbol of the earth and universe endowed with musical values. If man is the center of his idea of life and nature, it is because of the laws that govern the movement of stars and history. The link binding his figures together has, in a sense, a Pythagorean harmony.” Salvatore Quasimodo, Milan, 1967, quoted from Bush, Boris Lover-Lorski: The Language of Time, page 12. Lovet-Lorski created sculptures of the following major figures I.J. Paderewski, Prime Minister of Poland Arturo Toscanini, Italian Conductor Lilian Gish, Actress President Franklin D. Roosevelt Mrs. M. C. Niarchos, wife of Stavros Niarchos President Abraham Lincoln James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, First Secretary of Defense Pope Pius XII Dr. Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist President Dwight D. Eisenhower Albert Schweitzer, theologian, organist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician General Charles De Gaulle, President of the Fourth and Fifth Republic, France John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, 1953-1959 President John F. Kennedy Works by Lover Lorski are in the following public collections: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo Art Institute of Chicago Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris Brandeis University, Waltham, MA British Museum, London Boston University Brooklyn Museum California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Sam Francisco...

Red chalk on paper Image size: 11 x 5 1/2 inches (28 x 14 cm) Mounted This 18th century drawing is after the work of the 16th Century Italian artist Annibale Carraci. This figure, along with many more, were painted by Carraci in the Palazzo Farnese in a space now known as the Carracci gallery. The Carracci gallery is considered as one of the most important Renaissance commissions in Rome. This figure, along with five other companions, were known as 'The Captives'. They were designed by the artist to appear trapped in the architectural spaces in the walls and sat around the fresco that featured Perseus and Andromeda. Annibale Carracci Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) was the most admired painter of his time and the vital force in the creation of Baroque style. Together with his cousin Ludovico (1555–1619) and his older brother Agostino (1557–1602)—each an outstanding artist—Annibale set out to transform Italian painting. The Carracci rejected the artificiality of Mannerist painting, championing a return to nature coupled with the study of the great northern Italian painters of the Renaissance, especially Correggio, Titian, and Veronese.During the 1580s, the Carracci were painting the most radical and innovative pictures in Europe. Annibale not only drew from nature, he created a new, broken brushwork to capture movement and the effects of light on form. His Two Children Teasing a Cat marks a new chapter in the history of genre painting. The revolutionary potential of this new kind of painting would be taken up over a decade later by Caravaggio, who must have seen the Carraccis’ work while traveling from Milan to Rome in 1592.The Carracci saw themselves as heir to a great artistic tradition, and they consciously situated themselves within the history of northern Italian painting. Annibale and Agostino visited Parma and Venice to study the work of Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. Their altarpieces and secular fresco cycles in Bologna reasserted a northern Italian emphasis on color, light, and the study of nature, but with a new focus on emotive communication. Their success led to Annibale being invited to Rome to work for the powerful Farnese family (1595). Ludovico remained in Bologna to direct the academy they founded. Through the next generation of painters—Francesco Albani, Domenichino, Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco, and Guercino—Bolognese painting became the dominant force in seventeenth-century art. In Rome, Annibale’s painting was transformed through his first-hand encounter with classical antiquity and the art of Michelangelo and Raphael. Individual scenes of ancient mythology are surrounded by an elaborate illusionistic framework with feigned statues, in front of which sit muscular nude figures seemingly lit from the actual windows (Galleria Farnese ceiling). The corners are opened to painted views of the sky. When unveiled in 1600, the ceiling was instantly acclaimed as the equal of any work in the past. In combining northern Italian naturalism with the idealism of Roman painting, Annibale created the basis of Baroque art. His only challenger in Rome was Caravaggio, whose relation with the past was combative rather than assimilative. Moreover, Caravaggio’s art...

This drawing is very close to the other silverware designs created by Giulio Romano for the Gonzaga court in Mantua, where he settled from 1524 onwards. An exhibition organized a yea...

Figurative Sketches Italian School, mid 18th century circle of Pompeo Batoni (1707-1787) charcoal and pencil, heightened with white chalk, unframed...

French School 18th century, The Judgement of Paris, Pen and back ink and black ink wash on paper 14.5 x 17 cm Framed : 28 x 31 cm The particularly fine execution of this 18th century drawing is reminiscent of the style of the great draughtsmen of the period, but at this stage there is no sure way of attributing it. The theme of the work is obviously well known, the Judgement of Paris was particularly popular, and we remember its treatment by Antoine Watteau, but it crosses the whole history of art. The Judgement of Paris is a story from Greek mythology, which was one of the events that led up to the Trojan War and in later versions of the story to the foundation of Rome : Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. In revenge, Eris brought a golden apple, inscribed, "To the fairest one," which she threw into the wedding. Three goddesses...

Italian painter (17th century) - Male nude. 34 x 24 cm without frame, 42 x 32 cm with frame. Sanguine, charcoal and white pencil drawing on paper, in...

We would like to thank Marco Riccòmini for his help in preparing this note and in particular for pointing out the existence of the drawing in the Musei Civici of Reggio Emilia. The ...

This subtle drawing from the Roman Renaissance presents Apollo accompanied by three Muses. It is based on a sarcophagus depicting the nine Muses framed by Minerva and Apollo, which is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Girolamo de Carpi repeatedly drew figures from this sarcophagus during his stay in Rome between 1549 and 1553. Despite this common source of inspiration, the more delicate execution of our drawing and the similarities with a painting by the artist depicting Apollo or Poetry made around 1532-1534 (9th photo in the Gallery) suggest the same period of production for our drawing. 1. Girolamo de Carpi, a life between Ferrara and Rome at the service of the Este family Our knowledge of Girolamo de Carpi's life is largely based upon the second edition of the Lives of the Artists published in 1568 by Giorgio Vasari (1511 - 1574), became a close friend of his around 1550. Girolamo de Carpi was born in 1501 in Ferrara where his father was also a painter. After an apprenticeship shared between his father's workshop and that of Garofalo, Girolamo began his career in Bologna, where he settled in 1525, working on the frescoes in the sacristy of San Michele in Bosco alongside Biagio Pupini. He was then influenced by Parmigianino, whom he had met in Bologna or during a brief stay in Rome before moving to Bologna. From 1530 onwards, Girolamo de Carpi settled in Ferrara, probably making a further stay in Rome in 1531. He also began to work for the d'Este family, first in Belriguardo, where he took part in the decoration of the Sala della Vigna, then in the Palazetto della Montagna di San Giorgio (of which he may have been the architect), which he also decorated with frescoes, and finally in Copparo. A true Renaissance court artist, Girolamo also executed easel paintings, ephemeral decorations and tapestry cartoons for his clients. Cardinal Hippolyte d'Este, who, since the early 1540s, had been one of his main clients within this powerful family, called him to Rome to design the layout of his Quirinal garden. Girolamo remained in Rome for four years, also working as an architect at the Belvedere for Pope Julius III, before returning to Ferrara in 1553. His last work as an architect was the reconstruction of the ducal palace in Ferrara, which was partly destroyed by fire in 1554. 2. Description of the artwork and some related artworks This double-sided drawing depicts four figures inspired by antique statuary: Apollo accompanied by a griffin with the Muse Calliope on his right, and the Muses Melpomene and Polymnia on the reverse. The drawing of each figure, made of fine hatchings, is particularly delicate and evokes the refined art of Parmigianino, who inspired Girolamo de Carpi in his early days. The figure of Apollo...