Design for the decoration of a ceiling

This large study, showing an elaborate architectural decoration, is a rare example of a 17th Century presentation drawing employed as part of a contract between the artist and his patrons. The two halves of the sheet present two alternative designs for a complex decorative scheme with frames, putti, elegant telamons, garlands, and acanthus spirals. Finely inscribed in one of the cartouches at the top is the name of the artist responsible for these designs. Martino Bonfini was a painter, wood carver and stuccatore active between the end of the 16th Century and the beginning of the 17th Century, primarily in the Marche region where he was born in the province of Ascoli Piceno.

On the left margin of the sheet are two short paragraphs in two different 17th-century hands with signatures that should be ascribed to the patrons of the project approving the design. Unfortunately the inscriptions are fragmentary and it is not possible to connect the drawing with certainty to a specific commission. It can be suggested, however, that the project might relate to the decoration of the Church of the Santissimo Crocefisso in Monterubbiano, a small village near Fermo. This was an important commission for which Bonfini and his family produced both paintings and stucco decorations between 1624 and 1630. Many of the design elements in the drawing are present in the rich stucco and painted decoration of the church, on the walls and vaults of the lateral chapels and of the main altar (fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Church of the Santissimo Crocefisso, Monterubbiano (Fermo).