Lot Essay
The present drawing shares the same provenance as eleven other sheets from the Skippe collection sold in these rooms in 1958. The series was bought by John Skippe in Padua or Venice in 1773, probably from the Sagredo collection. In the 1958 sale catalogue the group were attributed by A.E. Popham to the school of Francesco Squarcione.
Squarcione was probably the most influential master in 15th Century Venice: he opened a studio in Padua and claimed up to 140 students who included Zoppo, Mantegna, Bellini and Niccolò Pizzolo. Only a few pictures and no drawings can be securely attributed to Squarcione today.
A.E. Popham suggested that two artists were responsible for the Skippe drawings: a first group with lots 198, 200, 202, 206 and the present drawings, and a second with lots 199, 201, 207, and 204, the last was recently sold in these Rooms, 5 July 1988, lot 30, illustrated. A further drawing from that group was separated from the Skippe collection in the early 19th Century and is now in the Museum Boymans-van Bueningen, Rotterdam.
Michael Miller (op. cit., pp. 242-3) considered these drawings to be a coherent group from a dismembered studio sketch book. The studio sketch book was the most important source of reference for artists in the early 15th Century. They were used by the master to record all the compositions he knew in order to re-use them at a later date. That the present drawing comes from such an album is confirmed by the presence of the same head in Mantegna's Ovetari chapel in Padua, as first pointed out by A.E. Popham, R. Lightbown, Mantegna, with a complete catalogue of the paintings, Drawings and Prints, Oxford, 1986, pl. 8. The head was probably painted by Mantegna's rival Pizzolò and is evidently inspired by the same source as the present drawing.
John Skippe (1742-1812) formed his collection of Old Master Drawings in an effort to create a complete illustrated history of art and for that he classified his drawings by period and type in two large volumes. The present drawing was no. 20 in the first album of Disegni.
Squarcione was probably the most influential master in 15th Century Venice: he opened a studio in Padua and claimed up to 140 students who included Zoppo, Mantegna, Bellini and Niccolò Pizzolo. Only a few pictures and no drawings can be securely attributed to Squarcione today.
A.E. Popham suggested that two artists were responsible for the Skippe drawings: a first group with lots 198, 200, 202, 206 and the present drawings, and a second with lots 199, 201, 207, and 204, the last was recently sold in these Rooms, 5 July 1988, lot 30, illustrated. A further drawing from that group was separated from the Skippe collection in the early 19th Century and is now in the Museum Boymans-van Bueningen, Rotterdam.
Michael Miller (op. cit., pp. 242-3) considered these drawings to be a coherent group from a dismembered studio sketch book. The studio sketch book was the most important source of reference for artists in the early 15th Century. They were used by the master to record all the compositions he knew in order to re-use them at a later date. That the present drawing comes from such an album is confirmed by the presence of the same head in Mantegna's Ovetari chapel in Padua, as first pointed out by A.E. Popham, R. Lightbown, Mantegna, with a complete catalogue of the paintings, Drawings and Prints, Oxford, 1986, pl. 8. The head was probably painted by Mantegna's rival Pizzolò and is evidently inspired by the same source as the present drawing.
John Skippe (1742-1812) formed his collection of Old Master Drawings in an effort to create a complete illustrated history of art and for that he classified his drawings by period and type in two large volumes. The present drawing was no. 20 in the first album of Disegni.