Salvator Rosa (1615-1673)

A man pushing a rock: A study for the Fall of the Giants

Details

Salvator Rosa (1615-1673)
A man pushing a rock: A study for the Fall of the Giants
numbered '8' and '37' on the mount
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash
174 x 118 mm.

Provenance

Probably Queen Christina of Sweden, and thence by inheritance to Cardinal Decio Azzolini and by descent to
Marchese Pompeo Azzolini.
Prince Livio Odescalchi, and thence by descent.
with Galerie Gerda Bassenge, Berlin, 1974, no. B37.

Literature

M. Kitson, Salvator Rosa, exhib. cat., London, Art Council, 1973, under no. 73.
M. Rotili, Salvatore Rosa Incisore, Naples, 1974, under no. 106.
M. Mahoney, The Drawings of Salvator Rosa, New York, 1977, p. 277, no. 70.13
R. Wallace, The Etchings of Salvator Rosa, Princeton, 1979, under no. 115j.

Lot Essay

Connected by Mahoney to Rosa's etching of the Fall of the Giants dated 1663. Often described as a tour de force, the intricate composition was built up from an arrangement of single figure studies such as the present one, re-used by the artist and developed into the large cartoon now at the British Museum. The present figure also appears in reverse and at a different angle in a red chalk drawing in the Gabinetto Nazionale in Rome which the artist discarded at a later stage, I.J. Scott, Salvator Rosa, his life and times, London, 1995, pl. 174.

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