Lot Essay
The attribution to Salviati has kindly been confirmed by David Jaffé and, on the basis of a photograph, Alessandro Nova. David Jaffé suggests that the use of blue paper indicates that this drawing may date from Salviati's period in Venice 1539-40. Figures of similarly contorted pose appear in the ceiling of the Sala di Apollo in the Grimani palace of 1540. A drawing with similarly applied white heightening is in the Louvre, C. Monbeig-Goguel, Vasari et son temps, Paris, 1972, no. 152, illustrated. Dr. Nova compares the drawing to studies of Apostles in Christ Church, J. Byam Shaw, Drawings by Old Masters at Christ Church Oxford, Oxford, 1976, I, no. 145, II, pl. 97