BACCIO DELLA PORTA, FRA BARTOLOMMEO* (1472-1517)

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Details

BACCIO DELLA PORTA, FRA BARTOLOMMEO* (1472-1517)

Head of an Angel, in profile looking up to the right (recto); and Study of a Hand (verso, laid down)

black chalk, on light brown paper
8 1/8 x 6 3/8in. (205 x 163mm.)

Provenance

Earl of Warwick (L. 2600); Christie's, London, 20 May 1896, lot 18 (¨5.10 shillings to Sir Charles Robinson)
Sir Charles Robinson (L. 1433)
Sir Herbert Cook
Anon. sale; Christie's, London, 11 December 1979, lot 31, illustrated (as Giovanni Antonio Sogliani) (¨1,300)
Anon. sale; Christie's, London, 7 July 1992, lot 118, illustrated (¨24,200)

Literature

B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago, 1938 and 1970, no. 2736 (as Giovanni Antonio Sogliani)
C. Fischer, Fra Bartlommeo, Rotterdam, 1990, under no. 36, illustrated

Exhibited

Toronto, The Art Gallery of Ontario and New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, Italian Drawings from the Collection of Duke Roberto Ferretti, 1985-6, no. 1, illustrated (as Giovanni Antonio Sogliani)

Lot Essay

Sold at Christie's, London, 20 May 1896 as by Fra Bartolommeo, this sheet was then published as the work of Giovanni Antonio Sogliani by Berenson, an attribution which was maintained by David McTavish in the Ferretti catalogue of 1985. More recently, Chris Fischer has argued convincingly for the authorship of Fra Bartolommeo and associated this sheet with a Study for the Head of an Angel in Rotterdam (Fischer, op. cit., no. 36). Fischer relates the Rotterdam drawing directly with an angel in the Frate's Vision of Saint Bernard of 1504-6 in the Uffizi, and states that this study is drawn from the same head