Lot Essay
Walter Vitzthum identified the recto as a study for an angel on the left of a lunette above the entrance portal of San Giovanni in Valetta, Malta, V. Mariani, Mattia Preti a Malta, Rome, 1929, pl. 15. Preti worked in the church of San Giovanni in Valetta between 1661 and 1666, and specifically on the entrance portal in 1662-3. Vitzthum lists in the Uffizi catalogue some twenty three drawings for San Giovanni to which should be added one in the Rijksprentenkabinet in Amsterdam for the same figure as that on the recto of the present drawing, L.C.J. Frerichs, Italiaanske Tekeningen de 17de eeuw,, exhib. cat., Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1973, no. 107, fig. 45.
Richard Krautheimer noted that the studies on the verso may be for a martyrdom or a burial of an elderly saint, possibly Saint Matthew. Preti treated this subject in a picture dated 1658, formerly in the church of Saint Matthew at Qrendi, in Malta, A. Pelagi in Mattia Preti e il Seicento italiano, Naples, 1975, no. 136.
Richard Krautheimer noted that the studies on the verso may be for a martyrdom or a burial of an elderly saint, possibly Saint Matthew. Preti treated this subject in a picture dated 1658, formerly in the church of Saint Matthew at Qrendi, in Malta, A. Pelagi in Mattia Preti e il Seicento italiano, Naples, 1975, no. 136.