The Rape of Persephone

Details

CAMILLO PROCACCINI (BOLOGNA 1555-1629 MILAN)
The Rape of Persephone
black and red chalk, the upper right corner made up
8 x 7 3⁄8 in. (20.3 x 18.7 cm)

Provenance

Claudio Argentieri (1891-1956?), Rome (L. 486b).
Pier Giulio Breschi (1874-1937), Rome (L. 2079b).
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 7 July 1959, part of lot 81 (as Italian School).
Philip Pouncey (1910-1990), London; Sotheby's, New York, 21 January 2003, lot 12.

Literature

N. Ward Neilson, Camillo Procaccini, New York, 1979, no. 308, ill.

Exhibited

Edinburgh, The Merchants' Hall, Italian 16th Century Drawings from British Private Collections, 1969, no. 70, ill.

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Giada Damen, Ph.D. AVP, Specialist, Head of Sale

gdamen@christies.com +1 212 641 7532

Lot Essay

Executed towards the end of the 1590s with Procaccini’s descriptive and characteristic red-chalk technique, the present sheet originally belonged to the late Philip Pouncey (1910-1990), the great connoisseur and scholar of Italian drawings, who recognized it as a work by the artist at a 1959 Christie’s auction in London. Developed into a highly finished drawing and seemingly never translated into a painting, the same subject was further investigated by the artist in a second sheet in red chalk now in the Courtauld Gallery, London (inv. D.1952.RW.3777).

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