The Fall of Phaeton

Details

FRANCESCO CACCIANIGA (MILAN 1700-1781 ROME)
The Fall of Phaeton
with inscription ‘Caccianiga eseguito in un soffitto di villa Pinciana’ (lower center)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white, squared for transfer
16 7⁄8 x 13 ¼ in. (42.5 x 33.3 cm)

Provenance

Unidentified collector’s mark (L. 2508).
Willem Anne Lestevenon (1750-1830), Paris and Haarlem.
Jean-Baptiste-Florentin-Gabriel de Meryan, Marquis de Lagoy (1764-1829), Aix en Provence (L. 1710); Paris, 14-19 April 1834, lot 113 (as Paolo Caccianiga).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 5 July 1993, lot 304.
with Nissman, Abromson, Brookline.

Literature

F. Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de Dessins et d’Estampes. Fondation Custodia, available online www.marquesdecollections.fr (accessed in November 2023), under Lugt 2508.

Exhibited

Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, Making a Prince’s Museum. Drawings for the Late-Eighteenth-Century Redecoration of the Villa Borghese, 2000, pp. 51-52, ill. (catalogue by C. Paul).
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Splendor and Elegance. European Decorative Arts and Drawings from the Horace Wood Brock Collection, 2009, no. 137, ill. (essay by C. S. Ackley).

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This large sheet is a highly finished study for a ceiling decoration in the Villa Borghese in Rome (fig. 1). Beginning in 1775 Prince Marcantonio Borghese IV, together with the architect Antonio Asprucci, embarked on the renovation of the villa and its surroundings, a project that lasted about twenty years. Francesco Caccianiga was involved in the execution of the new wall decoration. Most of the plans, designs and documents relative to the project are today at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles (see Paul, op. cit.). The drawing is annotated at the foot by the architect Antonio Asprucci.

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