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Lot Essay
The provenance of the sheet goes back to the early 16th Century, as shown by the handwritten letters at lower right that stand for 'Girolamo Genga Urbinas' and connect the work to the collection of Timoteo Viti (1470-1523). Viti was an artist from Urbino, an associate of Raphael, and he came into possession of a large number of the master’s drawings together with a handful of sheets and cartoons by Luca Signorelli and other artists. The drawings in Viti’s collection were passed down to his descendants, the Marquis Antaldi of Pesaro, and in the 18th Century were marked with initials referring to their supposed attribution (see F. Rinaldi, ‘The Viti-Antaldi Collection of Raphael Drawings’, in C. La Malfa, Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino in Art Collections and in the History of Collecting, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2023, pp. 157-176).
Among the many drawings in the Viti collection there were also sheets by the young Girolamo Genga. In order to secure commissions in Urbino, the artist indeed had joined the more established Timoteo Viti and collaborated with him at the very beginning of the 16th Century (see F. Rinaldi, ‘Girolamo Genga as a Draftsman’, Master Drawings, LII, no. 1, Spring 2014, p. 8).
Juxtaposed on this sheet are two figures taken from Michelangelo’s famous cartoon for the Battle of Cascina, a lost work known today only through copies, but which Genga could have seen during his time in Florence (fig. 1). In the Biblioteca Oliveriana in Pesaro there is another drawing in red chalk, from the Viti-Antaldi collection, attributed to Girolamo Genga, which reproduces other figures from Michelangelo’s composition (inv. 523; A. Forlani Tempesti, ‘Gerolamo Genga’, in F. Costamagna, F. Härb, S. Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, Disegno, giudizio e bella maniera. Studi sul disegno italiano in onore di Catherine Monbeig Goguel, Milan, 2005, no. 12, ill.).
Executed in pen and brown ink with a fine crosshatching technique, the present sheet, in spite of its partially harsh execution, can be compared with other works by Genga such as the beautiful Virgin and child in the Uffizi (inv. 132F; Rinaldi, op. cit., 2014, no. A3, ill.).
Fig. 1. Bastiano (Aristotile) da Sangallo, Copy after the central episode of the Bathers in Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina. Holkham Hall, Norfolk.
Among the many drawings in the Viti collection there were also sheets by the young Girolamo Genga. In order to secure commissions in Urbino, the artist indeed had joined the more established Timoteo Viti and collaborated with him at the very beginning of the 16th Century (see F. Rinaldi, ‘Girolamo Genga as a Draftsman’, Master Drawings, LII, no. 1, Spring 2014, p. 8).
Juxtaposed on this sheet are two figures taken from Michelangelo’s famous cartoon for the Battle of Cascina, a lost work known today only through copies, but which Genga could have seen during his time in Florence (fig. 1). In the Biblioteca Oliveriana in Pesaro there is another drawing in red chalk, from the Viti-Antaldi collection, attributed to Girolamo Genga, which reproduces other figures from Michelangelo’s composition (inv. 523; A. Forlani Tempesti, ‘Gerolamo Genga’, in F. Costamagna, F. Härb, S. Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, Disegno, giudizio e bella maniera. Studi sul disegno italiano in onore di Catherine Monbeig Goguel, Milan, 2005, no. 12, ill.).
Executed in pen and brown ink with a fine crosshatching technique, the present sheet, in spite of its partially harsh execution, can be compared with other works by Genga such as the beautiful Virgin and child in the Uffizi (inv. 132F; Rinaldi, op. cit., 2014, no. A3, ill.).
Fig. 1. Bastiano (Aristotile) da Sangallo, Copy after the central episode of the Bathers in Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina. Holkham Hall, Norfolk.