A seated boy, his head on his arms, draped in a cloak (recto); A reclining figure (verso)

Details

Attributed to Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Il Battistello (Naples 1578-1635)
A seated boy, his head on his arms, draped in a cloak (recto); A reclining figure (verso)
red chalk, watermark hand surmounted by a flower
7 5/8 x 5 5/8 in. (19.4 x 14.9 cm)

Provenance

Sir Thomas Lawrence, London (1769-1830) (L. 2445).
M.H. Bloxam, by whom given to Rugby School Art Museum.

Literature

Anne Popham, typescript catalogue, no. 68, as Italian School, 17th Century.

A. Schmarsow, 'Aus dem Kunstmuseum der Schule zu Rugby', Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, IX, 1888, no. 1, p. 136, as French or Spanish.
M. Causa Picone, ‘Corenzio e Battistello nel Monte di Pietà a Napoli’, Paragone, 1989, no. 469, pp. 69-70, 76-77, n. 9, fig. 42.
S. Causa, Battistello Caracciolo. L’opera completa, Naples, 2000, pp. 153, 406, no. G4, fig. 123.

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Phoebe Tronzo

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Lot Essay

Maria Causa Picone first connected the present sheet to the sleeping Saint John in The Agony in the Garden, frescoed in the chapel of the Monte di Pieta (Naples) by Belisario Corenzio with the possible assistance of the young Battistello, who was paid in 1601 for painting the chapel’s facade, his first documented commission. She proposes the drawing is a work of Battistello, a Neapolitan follower of Caravaggio. Among the few drawings attributed to him, this sheet is charged with a delicate sense of naturalism, reminiscent
of the manner of Ludovico and Annibale Carracci, whose frescoes in the Farnese Gallery he copied in a drawing in the Museo di San Martino (Causa, op. cit., no. G24, ill.).

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