Giulio Pippi, Giulio Romano (1485-1546)

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

Details

Giulio Pippi, Giulio Romano (1485-1546)

A symbolic Representation of the Arms of Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga

black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, traces of red chalk at the lower edge
16 7/8 x 11 3/8in. (427 x 288mm.)

Provenance

Sir Peter Lely (L. 2092).
N.A. Flinck (L. 959).
William, 2nd Duke of Devonshire (L. 718) and by descent.
Chatsworth, no. 105.
The Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement; Christie's, London, 3 July 1984, lot 18, illustrated (£43,200 to the present owner).

Literature

Flemish Art 1300-1700, exhib. cat., Royal Academy, London, 1953, under no. 19.
F. Hartt, Giulio Romano, New Haven, 1958, p. 251, no. 362, fig. 518.
M. Viale Ferrero, Arazzi italiani del Cinquecento, Milan, 1963, p. 19.
I.Q. van Regteren Altena and P.W. Ward-Jackson, Drawings from the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, exhib. cat. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1970, under no. 81.
B.W. Meijer and C. van Tuyll, Disegni Italiani del Teylers Museum, exhib. cat., Istituto Universitario Olandese di Storia dell'Arte, Florence and Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome, 1983-4, under no. 66.
G. Delmarcel and C.M. Brown, Les Jeux d'Enfants, tapisseries italiennes et flamandes pour les Gonzague, Revue d'art canadienne, 1988, XV, p. 112.
N. Forti Grazzini in Giulio Romano, exhib. cat., Palazzo del Tè, Mantua, 1989, p. 478, illustrated.
M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, Roman and Neapolitan Schools, London, 1994, no. 222, illustrated.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, Drawings by Old Masters, 1953, no. 59.
London, Royal Academy, Italian Art and Britain, 1960, no. 571.
Washington, National Gallery of Art and elsewhere, Old Master Drawings from Chatsworth, 1962-3, no. 27, illustrated.
London, Royal Academy, Old Master Drawings from Chatsworth, 1969, no. 27, illustrated.
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Old Master Drawings from Chatsworth, 1975, no. 27, illustrated.
Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, Old Master Drawings, a loan from the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, 1977, no. 27, illustrated.
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Splendours of the Gonzagas, 1981-2, no. 204, illustrated.

Lot Essay

A modello for a now lost tapestry from a series commissioned by Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga in Mantua between 1540 and 1546. In a variation of the composition in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem (op. cit., no. 81, illustrated) the putto has been replaced by an allegory of Fortune holding a scroll inscribed 'Renovabitur ut Aquilae Iuventus Tua' (Thy youth will be renewed like the eagle's, Psalm 103, 5). The motto is an allusion both to the arms of the Gonzaga, four eagles, and to the role of Ercole Gonzaga as Regent for his nephew, still a minor at his father's death in 1540. The drawing can therefore be dated between 1540 and 1546, the year Giulio died.
The four eagles were the principal charge in the coat-of-arms of the family of Gonzaga, Marchese and later Dukes of Mantua: a cross-patée throughout between four eagles displayed. The arms on the oval shield, a lion rampant quartering barry of eight are also that of the Gonzaga. The presence of the cardinal's hat supported by putti identifies the patron as Ercole Gonzaga (1505-1563), the only member of the family to have held the title of Cardinal within the period of Giulio's employment at the court of Mantua.
G. Delmarcel and C.M. Brown proposed that this drawing, and its alternative design in Haarlem, were intended for a series of twelve backcloth tapestries of 'Fortuna condotta da quatro Aquile' (Fortune driven by four eagles) woven in Flanders and recorded in the inventory of Ercole Gonzaga's tapestries of 1563.
Nello Forti Grazzini pointed out that the format of a backcloth tapestry would have been horizontal and that the shape of the design would have been more suited to that of an overdoor tapestry. Forti Grazzini suggested that the drawing is a petit patron for a series of tapestries of Giochi di Putti after Giulio Romano. The tapestries, some of which are now in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, were woven by Nicola Karcher circa 1540-5 for Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga. The series is also documented in the Cardinal's inventories previously mentioned, N. Forti Grazzini, op. cit., illustrated pp. 474-8. Two of Giulio's drawings for the series of Giochi di Putti are in the Victoria and Albert Museum and in a private collection, London.