Luca Cambiaso (Moneglia 1527-1585 Madrid)
ITALIAN DRAWINGS FROM AN IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION
Luca Cambiaso (Moneglia 1527-1585 Madrid)

Saint Anthony pursued by demons

Details
Luca Cambiaso (Moneglia 1527-1585 Madrid)
Saint Anthony pursued by demons
with inscription 'LC' (verso)
pen and brown ink, brown wash
16 1/8 x 11¼ in. (41 x 28.6 cm.)
Provenance
Possibly Arthur Pond.
Christian Humann.
with Adolphe Stein, Paris, 1983.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, Paris, 15 December 2004, lot 29, where acquired by the present owner.
Engraved

Lot Essay

This dramatic, monumental composition was executed by Cambiaso in the early 1560s and popularized by a reproductive woodcut first published by Arthur Pond in Imitation of Drawings, 1734. The artist created an alternative depiction of this celebrated passage from the life of Saint Anthony on a second sheet of similar size, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. 1929.540), where the arrangement appears in reverse and with a different background. Two other copies of lesser quality attest the fortunes of this composition (Louvre, Paris, inv. 9272 and 9273). We are grateful to Jonathan Bober for confirming the attribution to Cambiaso based on a digital image.

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