Lot Essay
The present drawing is a study for the two nymphs pointing to the tree which gave birth to Adonis in The Birth of Adonis, in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, R. Roli, Pittura Bolognese, 1650-1800, dal Cignani ai Gandolfi, Bologna, 1977, no. 122, illustrated.
The position of the two nymphs in the picture is slightly different from that in this sheet, but a compositional drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Dresden picture shows the same relationship between the two nymphs as in the present drawing, D. C. Miller, Some Unpublished Drawings by Marcantonio Franceschini and a Proposed Chronology, Master Drawings, 1971, IX, p. 127, pl. 8.
Dwight Miller noted that the Dresden picture is probably the one mentioned in Franceschini's account book, as commissioned in October 1684 by P. Gremesi.
Franceschini painted two further versions of this subject, one in the Pallavicini collection in Genoa and another in the Liechtenstein collection in Vaduz of circa 1692-1700, Roli, op. cit., no. 124b, illustrated.
The position of the two nymphs in the picture is slightly different from that in this sheet, but a compositional drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Dresden picture shows the same relationship between the two nymphs as in the present drawing, D. C. Miller, Some Unpublished Drawings by Marcantonio Franceschini and a Proposed Chronology, Master Drawings, 1971, IX, p. 127, pl. 8.
Dwight Miller noted that the Dresden picture is probably the one mentioned in Franceschini's account book, as commissioned in October 1684 by P. Gremesi.
Franceschini painted two further versions of this subject, one in the Pallavicini collection in Genoa and another in the Liechtenstein collection in Vaduz of circa 1692-1700, Roli, op. cit., no. 124b, illustrated.