Ludovico Cardi, il Cigoli* (1559-1613)

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Details

Ludovico Cardi, il Cigoli* (1559-1613)

Pope Sixtus V receiving Divine Inspiration for his Writings (recto); Studies of the Madonna and Child and Saint George (verso)

black chalk (recto), pen and brown ink, grey-blue and brown wash
6¼ x 9¼in. (158 x 235mm.)

Provenance

with Yvonne Tan Bunzl, 1971
Dr. and Mrs. Malcom W. Bick; Sotheby's, London, 2 July 1984, lot 73, recto illustrated

Literature

M.L. Chappell, Disegni dei toscani a Roma (1580-1620), exhib. cat., Florence, Uffizi, 1979, under no. 74
F. Viatte, Dessins baroques florentins du Musée du Louvre, exhib. cat., Paris, Louvre, 1981, under no. 131
F. Viatte, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins: Inventaire général des dessins italiens III., Dessins Toscans XVI^e-XVII^e, Paris, 1988, I, under no. 131
M.L. Chappell, Disegni di Lodovico Cigoli (1559-1613), exhib. cat., Florence, Uffizi, 1992, under no. 73

Exhibited

Yale, Yale University Art Gallery, Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings: Forms and Function, 1974, no. 43, illustrated
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings in New York Collections, 1994, no. 36, illustrated

Lot Essay

A study for an unexecuted tapestry commissioned by Alessando Peretti, Cardinal Montalto, a nephew of the Pope and a close friend of Duke Ferdinando I de' Medici, of Pope Sixtus V receiving Divine Wisdom, showing him working on his revised version of the Vulgate published in 1589. A number of drawings survive for this project, the earliest of which are pen and ink studies in the Uffizi (M. Chappell, op. cit., 1992, no. 23, illustrated) and in the Gabinetto Nazionale, Rome (F.C. 130678). The present study is a development of the Uffizi sheet with the two groups studied in that drawing - the Pope guided by the Angels on the left and the group of prelates on the right - placed, with minor changes, into the interior of a library. At this stage of the development of the composition the artist was still experimenting; particularly in the group of prelates on the right with a number of pentimenti in the poses of the figures pulling out books. The wash has been quickly applied to suggest the fall of light as in the Uffizi study. The next surviving drawing in the sequence is probably that in the Louvre which, because of the later inscription written on the border 'Cigoli de Cartoni...arazzi fatti al card^l^e montalto', is key to the identification of the purpose of this group. The Louvre sheet (F. Viatte, op. cit., 1981, no. 131) shows the central scene almost identical to that in the present study, except that it is much more finished in character with many more details included, such as the paintings on the walls and the view through the curtained doorway, and an elaborate border with allegorical figures and putti surrounding it. The border is studied further in a drawing in the Uffizi (M. Chappell, 1992, no. 22). A very finished pen and ink and watercolor study of the seated Pope and the border was recently with Katrin Bellinger, Drawings in Florence, exhib. cat., Harari and Johns, London, 1991, figs 22a-b. The fact that the Bellinger drawing is in the reverse sense to that of all the other studies, may suggest that it was a presentation drawing intended to show the patron what both the composition and the colors of the finished tapestry would look like.
The dating of the tapestry commission is suggested by the studies on the verso of this drawing which are preparatory for the Virgin and Child with Saints Michael and Peter, dated 1593 in Santa Maria Arcangolo, Pianezzole, F. Faranda, Ludovico Cardi detto il Cigoli, Rome, 1986, no. 14, illustrated. The painting is very clearly influenced by Correggio: indeed in the present study the figure of Saint Michael in the upper right is copied after Saint George in Correggio's Madonna of Saint George, now in Dresden. The only other drawing for the painting, a study for the head of the Madonna, is in the Louvre, F. Viatte, 1988, no. 137, illustrated