Alessandro Algardi (1598-1654)

細節

Alessandro Algardi (1598-1654)

A Design for the Prow of the Galley of Pope Urban VIII with the Barberini Arms of Bees and Sun, Ignudi, Tritons, Hippocamps, Putti and an Allegory of Victory as the Figurehead below the letters VRBA intertwined with Putti

black lead, pen and brown ink, some incising, a section at the lower right edge made up
216 x 410mm.

來源

Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, his mount, and thence by descent; Christie's, 2 July 1991, lot 36 (£49,500).

出版

W. Vitzthum, Disegni di Alessandro Algardi, Bollettino d'Arte, XLVIII, 1963, p. 84, fig. 19.
J. Montagu, Alessandro Algardi, New Haven and London, 1985, I, p. 67, II, no. 83, p. 485.
A.E. Popham and C. Lloyd, Old Master Drawings at Holkham Hall, Chicago, 1986, no. 37, illustrated.
G. Fusconi, A. Petrioli Tofani, S. Prosperi Valenti Rondino and G.C. Sciolla, Il disegno, I grandi Collezionisti, Milan, 1992, p. 155, fig. 177.
V. Birke and J. Kertèsz, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina, Vienna, 1995, III, under Inv. 2438.

展覽

Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Old Master Drawings from Holkham Hall, 1988, no. 37.

拍品專文

Walter Vitzthum identified this drawing as a study for a galley, which was to be called Urbano. The idea of designing a ship may have been suggested by Alessandro Zambeccari, a patron of the sculptor and Lieutenant-General of the Papal Fleet between 1643 and 1646. A more finished study of the poop of the vessel is in the Albertina, J. Montagu, op. cit., no. 84, fig. 64. The cartouches in the Vienna drawing record the fortifications at Forte Urbano, Castel Sant'Angelo and the harbour at Civitavecchia commissioned by Pope Urban VIII. The wonderfully inventive decorations of the galley, suitably marine in subject, suggest that the drawings were intended to please the Pope's eyes rather than as a serious and practical design. If this were the intention of the drawings, it cannot have succeeded, as the Pope and his agents never employed Algardi, favouring instead his rival Bernini.