Lot Essay
This previously unidentified study is probably preparatory for one of the seven lost frescoes, executed between 1656 and 1659, painted above the city gates of Naples as ex-votos to celebrate the end of the plague. The combination of the weather and the earthquake of 1688 meant that by the end of the 17th Century they were almost completely ruined, and now there is no trace of them. Two out of the seven compositions are recorded through Preti's bozzetti in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, E. Corace (ed.), Mattia Preti, Rome, 1989, nos. 23-4, both illustrated. The compositions were, to judge from the bozzetti,
fairly similar: in the upper register were Saints Januarius, Francis
Xavier and Rosalia kneeling before the Madonna and Child interceding
for the plague victims in the lower half of the composition, J.D.
Clifton, Jesuits, Theatines, and Mattia Preti's Frescoes for the City Gates of Naples, Ricerche sul '600 naploletano, 1986, pp. 103-10. The studies on the verso of this drawing with the standing Madonna and Child with Saint Januarius, identifiable by his Archbishop's mitre and hat, standing behind the kneeling Saint Francis Xavier, his arms outstretched, are close to one of the Capodimonte sketches (E. Corace, op. cit., no. 23). Both on the recto and the verso are studies for the victims of the plague which, because of the position of the frescoes, are drawn di sotto in su. As all the frescoes were variants on the same basic composition, and as the present study does not concur exactly with either bozzetto, it is likely that it is preparatory for one of the other five for which there is no record of their appearance.
Preti must have drawn a large number of similar compositional studies for such an important commission, indeed the Eletti di Napoli, who commissioned the artist, specifically asked to see preparatory drawings to give their approval before the artist began the work. Only one other drawing for the commission is known, a finished study in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford for the figure of Saint Januarius in the fresco for the Porta dello Santo Spirto, J. Stock, in Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli, exhib. cat., Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, II, no. 3.57a, illustrated. Although the Ashmolean drawing is very different to this study, the small sketch of the Madonna and Child on the margin is close, both in style and technique, to that on the verso of this sheet. Preti drawings are relatively rare and those that have survived tend to be more finished studies of figures, the present study is closest to sketchier sheets such as the study, again in the Ashmolean Museum, for the frescoes in San Giovanni, Valletta of the early 1660s, K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Italian School, Oxford, 1956, II, no. 928, pl. CCI
fairly similar: in the upper register were Saints Januarius, Francis
Xavier and Rosalia kneeling before the Madonna and Child interceding
for the plague victims in the lower half of the composition, J.D.
Clifton, Jesuits, Theatines, and Mattia Preti's Frescoes for the City Gates of Naples, Ricerche sul '600 naploletano, 1986, pp. 103-10. The studies on the verso of this drawing with the standing Madonna and Child with Saint Januarius, identifiable by his Archbishop's mitre and hat, standing behind the kneeling Saint Francis Xavier, his arms outstretched, are close to one of the Capodimonte sketches (E. Corace, op. cit., no. 23). Both on the recto and the verso are studies for the victims of the plague which, because of the position of the frescoes, are drawn di sotto in su. As all the frescoes were variants on the same basic composition, and as the present study does not concur exactly with either bozzetto, it is likely that it is preparatory for one of the other five for which there is no record of their appearance.
Preti must have drawn a large number of similar compositional studies for such an important commission, indeed the Eletti di Napoli, who commissioned the artist, specifically asked to see preparatory drawings to give their approval before the artist began the work. Only one other drawing for the commission is known, a finished study in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford for the figure of Saint Januarius in the fresco for the Porta dello Santo Spirto, J. Stock, in Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli, exhib. cat., Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, II, no. 3.57a, illustrated. Although the Ashmolean drawing is very different to this study, the small sketch of the Madonna and Child on the margin is close, both in style and technique, to that on the verso of this sheet. Preti drawings are relatively rare and those that have survived tend to be more finished studies of figures, the present study is closest to sketchier sheets such as the study, again in the Ashmolean Museum, for the frescoes in San Giovanni, Valletta of the early 1660s, K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Italian School, Oxford, 1956, II, no. 928, pl. CCI