Design for a mural decoration with Prudence

Giovanni Battista Cremonini established himself as one of the protagonists of fresco decoration for palaces and villas in Bologna. His biographers, Giulio Cesare Malvasia and Marcello Oretti, described the artist as a prolific painter gifted with invention and ‘bizzarria’. Cremonini was also successful as an architect and inventor of elaborate decorations and machines for theater and festivals (N. Clerci Bagozzi, ‘Qualche aggiunta al catalogo delle imprese decorative di Giovanni Battista Cremonini’, Arte a Bologna. Bollettino dei Musei Civici d’Arte Antica, nos. 7-8, 2010-2011, pp. 298-308).

The drawing was made in preparation for an elaborate fresco decoration. The figure standing in between the fictive architectural elements with a mirror in her hand is an allegory of Prudence. The complexity of invention, with narrative scenes inserted in elaborate architectural frames of different shapes, reveals that the project was probably intended for an important commission. Some elements of the decoration are reminiscent of Cremonini’s exuberant frescoes in the 16th Century Palazzo Vassé in Bologna (V. Fortunati, Palazzo Vassé Pietramellara, Bologna, 2009).

A variant of this composition is in the Uffizi in Florence (inv. 1567 E); the two versions display only minor differences, notably in the scene in the right compartment.