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Presented here is a selection of 16th century drawings in stock. Please click on a thumbnail to view further information on the work, as well as an enlarged image of the entire drawing. Six thumbnail images are shown per page; click on the red page number at the lower right to view another page. | |  Click to enlarge | | IPPOLITO ANDREASI
Mantua 1548-1608 Mantua
Two Putti Flanking the Gonzaga Coat of Arms
Pen and brown ink and brown wash, heightened with white, over traces of an underdrawing in black chalk. Squared for transfer in black chalk. Inscribed FIDES at the upper centre, below the crown.
133 x 168 mm. (5 1/4 x 6 5/8 in.)
| |  Click to enlarge | | BERNARDO CASTELLO
Genoa 1557-1627 Genoa Perseus and Andromeda Pen and brown ink and brown wash, heightened with white, on blue-green paper. Squared in black chalk for transfer, and with framing lines in brown ink. 202 x 258 mm. (8 x 10 1/8 in.) [sheet]
| |  Click to enlarge | | Attributed to DIEGO LÓPEZ DE ESCURIAZ Active at El Escorial between 1587 and 1597 a. The Visitation b. Saint John the Baptist Taking Leave of his Mother Each pen and brown ink and brown wash, heightened with white, on blue-green paper, the outlines pricked for transfer. 186 x 465 mm. (7 1/4 x 18 1/4 in.) 185 x 461 mm. (7 1/4 x 17 7/8 in.)
These two drawings are part of a group of drawings by Spanish artists working at the large monastery complex of El Escorial, northwest of Madrid, in the late 16th century. They were executed as designs for embroidery intended for the liturgical vestments of the priests—chasubles, copes, dalmatics and so forth—or as ornamental coverings for the altars. Invariably drawn in pen and brown wash on blue-green paper, the majority of the extant drawings from this group are still to be found in two albums in the library at the Escorial, and can in part be dated, on the basis of documentary evidence, to between 1587 and 1589. Many of the designs, like this pair of drawings, are finely and extensively pricked for transfer to the embroidery pattern. Apart from those drawings still remaining in the library of the Escorial, other examples of this distinctive group of Spanish embroidery designs are rare. A number of drawings, perhaps part of the contents of one album, seem to have left the Escorial in the middle of the 19th century; examples of these are today in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, the Louvre, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Orléans, the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.
It has been noted that there must have been several masters and their workshops, each with numerous assistants, working within the Escorial on the preparation of these embroidery designs. The leading artists and chief designers of this group, and the only ones documented by name in records of payment, are Miguel Barroso (c.1538-1591) and Diego López de Escuriaz. The present pair of drawings can be reasonably attributed to López de Escuriaz on stylistic grounds, by comparison with other embroidery designs by him at the Escorial and elsewhere.
| |  Click to enlarge | | PIETRO FACCINI Bologna c.1562-1602 Bologna The Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist Pen and brown ink and brown wash. Inscribed di Pietro Faccini Bolognese and faccino on the verso. 218 x 203 mm. (8 5/8 x 8 in.)
Aptly described by one recent scholar as ‘one of the most creative and original draftsmen of the Emilian school’, Pietro Faccini worked in a variety of techniques, using pen and ink, wash, red and black chalk, watercolour and oiled charcoal. An accomplished and versatile draughtsman, his drawings were greatly admired by his contemporaries. They were especially popular with collectors; Cardinal Leopoldo de’ Medici is said to have owned over a hundred drawings by him. Although unrelated to any surviving painting, the present sheet is a splendid example of Faccini’s confident draughtsmanship. The use of broad areas of fluid wash to create effects of light in contrast to the areas of untouched white paper, as well as the relatively insubstantial forms of the figures themselves, is a characteristic feature of Faccini’s pen draughtsmanship of the late 1590s.
| |  Click to enlarge | | PAOLO FARINATI Verona 1524-1606 Verona Galatea Pen and brown ink and brown wash, over an underdrawing in black chalk, with touches of white heightening on light brown paper.
Inscribed by the artist galatea at the lower right. 282 x 142 mm. (11 1/8 x 5 1/2 in.)
One of the most significant figures in the artistic scene in Verona in the 16th century, Paolo Farinati was active as a painter, printmaker, architect and sculptor. It is as a draughtsman that Farinati is best known today, however. He was fairly prolific in this regard, generally working in pen and brown wash on coloured paper. Most of his drawings are highly finished, and many have the appearance of having been executed as autonomous works of art. This drawing, depicting the sea nymph Galatea riding on a shell drawn by dolphins, is a fine and typical example of Farinati's distinctive draughtsmanship. The placement of the figure in a niche would suggest that the drawing was intended to prepare a painted mural decoration in a palace or villa.
| |  Click to enlarge | | AURELIO LOMI Pisa 1556-1622 Pisa Studies of Youths Pulling on Ropes or Poles Black chalk, heightened with touches of white chalk on blue paper. A faint study of the main figure repeated in black chalk on the verso. Inscribed lomi in brown ink at the bottom centre. 200 x 301 mm. (7 7/8 x 11 7/8 in.) The brother of the painter Orazio Gentileschi and a pupil of Ludovico Cigoli in Florence, Aurelio Lomi worked mainly in Rome, Tuscany and Liguria. All of his known drawings are studies for paintings, and many of these can be connected with surviving works by the artist. In general, compositional studies were drawn in pen and ink, while black chalk was used for studies of individual figures and motifs. This fine sheet is a typical example of the latter, and displays the artist’s characteristic habit of repeating studies of parts of the figure on the same sheet. It has, unfortunately, not proved possible to relate the figures in this drawing to any surviving painting by the artist.
| |  Click to enlarge | | NORTH ITALIAN SCHOOL 16th Century Four Studies of Venetian Galleys Pen and brown ink, on light brown paper, laid down. Inscribed (by a 16th century hand) poppe della galea grossa, profilo della galea soffi(?), la sua prora and la sua poppe beneath each of the galleys depicted. Further inscribed (by a different hand) di mano venetiana in brown ink at the lower centre. 277 x 401 mm. (10 7/8 x 15 3/4 in.)
| |  Click to enlarge | | LELIO ORSI Novellara 1511-1587 Novellara Design for a Wall Decoration Pen and brown ink and grey wash, heightened with white. Laid down on an 18th century English mount. 254 x 303 mm. (10 x 11 7/8 in.)
Lelio Orsi’s drawings – many of which are designs for wall or façade decorations - have survived in greater number than his paintings, and were highly regarded in his lifetime. Often displaying the particular influence of Michelangelo, Orsi’s drawings are characterized by a refined technique and an imaginative approach to composition. The inventories of the Gonzaga collections at Novellara list several sheets by the artist, and enough contemporary copies of his drawings exist to show that they were widely known and appreciated. In later years the 18th century French collector and connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette noted how Orsi’s drawings were popular with collectors, writing that ‘les desseins de ce peintre sont fort recherchés. Il a une assez belle plume, et joint au goût terrible de Michel-Ange les graces aimables du Corrège’. Significant collections of drawings by Lelio Orsi are today to be found in the British Museum, the Louvre, the Uffizi and the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.
| |  Click to enlarge | | RAFFAELLINO MOTTA, called RAFFAELLINO DA REGGIO
Codemondo 1550-1578 Rome
Design for Part of an Elaborate Grotesque Wall Decoration, with Figures of Charity and a Putto
Pen and brown ink and brown wash, laid down on a 19th century mount 277 x 194 mm. (10 7/8 x 7 5/8 in.)
The attribution of the present sheet is based on its close stylistic and thematic relationship with a very similar design for a grotesque wall decoration in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The V & A drawing, which bears an contemporary ascription to Raffaellino and is surrounded by an identical drawn wash border, likewise depicts a draped female figure holding a cornucopia and standing within an openwork temple-like structure, with a putto at her feet. Also related to the present sheet is another variant of the design, with the same Charvet provenance, which was recently on the art market in Paris. Another comparable design for grotesque ornament, with the same compositional elements as this drawing but slightly less robust in handing, is in the Rothschild collection at Waddesdon Manor, where it has recently been attributed to Raffaellino da Reggio.
| |  Click to enlarge | | MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI Sant’Andrea in Argine c.1480-after 1534 Bologna A Male Nude Holding a Trophy Standard, Seen from Behind Pen and brown ink. 244 x 100 mm. (9 5/8 x 3 7/8 in.)
Among the most important printmakers of the Renaissance, Marcantonio Raimondi's first engravings date from around 1500-1505, and reveal the figural influence of his teacher Francesco Francia, as well as Lorenzo Costa and Andrea Mantegna. Raimondi’s early career was spent in Bologna, Venice and Florence, but from c.1510 onwards he was in Rome, where he worked for much of the remainder of his career. Working in collaboration with Raphael’s studio, he produced numerous engravings after the work of the master. Many of his engravings appear to have been made from Raphael’s preparatory drawings rather than the finished paintings, and the resulting prints found a ready market among collectors and connoisseurs, both in Italy and abroad. Indeed, it is largely through the dissemination of Raimondi’s prints that Raphael’s paintings and frescoes became widely known throughout Europe. Although he is very well known as a printmaker, only relatively recently has Raimondi been properly studied as a draughtsman. His work is characterized by pen drawings, usually finely and delicately drawn but also, at times, more freely and vigorously executed. The present sheet is likely to be an early Bolognese work by Raimondi, whose youthful draughtsmanship was strongly influenced by that of his master Francesco Francia. This drawing can be grouped with such early, Francia-inspired works by Marcantonio Raimondi as a study of a Standing Halberdier Seen from Behind in the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The Chapel Hill Halberdier was, like the present sheet, once attributed to Mantegna, and shares with it a very similar treatment of the figure—in particular the legs, buttocks and feet— which is also akin to that found in Raimondi’s earliest prints. The pose of the figure in this drawing would appear to be derived from an almost identically posed figure of Minerva in a highly finished pen drawing by Francia of The Judgement of Paris, today in the Albertina in Vienna.
Text and images copyright © 2007-2008 by Stephen Ongpin Fine Art. No portion of this website may be transferred, copied, or reproduced in whole or in part in any manner or in any media without the prior written consent of Stephen Ongpin Fine Art.
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