Lot Essay
Ann Percy kindly confirms the attribution of this drawing and dates it to circa 1645, the same period as the Adoration of the Shepherds in the Church of San Luca, Genoa, and the etching of the Nativity, A. Percy, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Master Draughtsman of the Italian Baroque, exhib. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1971, fig. 3 and no. E18, illustrated.
The pose of the Virgin holding the Child and turning backward was used by Castiglione in a number of drawings, though in a less accentuated manner. Drawings using this motif are in the Art Museum, Princeton (A. Percy, op. cit., no. 7, illustrated), at Bowdoin College, Brunswick (D.P. Becker, Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College, exhib. cat., Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, 1985, nos. 56-7, illustrated) and at Windsor, A. Blunt, The Drawings of G.B. Castiglione & Stefano della Bella in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London, 1954, nos. 32-3 and 255.
Ann Percy points out that the face of the Virgin and her relationship with the Child was influenced by Van Dyck, particularly by The Virgin and Child of his Italian period, G. Glück, Van Dyck, New York, 1935, pl. 148.
The pose of the Virgin holding the Child and turning backward was used by Castiglione in a number of drawings, though in a less accentuated manner. Drawings using this motif are in the Art Museum, Princeton (A. Percy, op. cit., no. 7, illustrated), at Bowdoin College, Brunswick (D.P. Becker, Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College, exhib. cat., Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, 1985, nos. 56-7, illustrated) and at Windsor, A. Blunt, The Drawings of G.B. Castiglione & Stefano della Bella in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London, 1954, nos. 32-3 and 255.
Ann Percy points out that the face of the Virgin and her relationship with the Child was influenced by Van Dyck, particularly by The Virgin and Child of his Italian period, G. Glück, Van Dyck, New York, 1935, pl. 148.