Lot Essay
A study for the earliest executed picture in Milan by the artist, for the church of San Fedele, N. Ward Neilson, Camillo Procaccini, New York and London, 1979, no. 17, fig. 33. The drawing is preparatory for one of five signed etchings by Camillo, one of his most famous graphic works, executed between 1587 and 1590, Illustrated Bartsch, XVIII, 4. The size of the etching, exceptional for its time, offered the artist a means of promoting his skills. Two years later, Procaccini executed another Transfiguration, a paintng for one of the Organ shutters of Milan Cathedral. The reputatiom of the first painted version was eclipsed by that of the print, it entered the Borromeo collection on Isola Bella in the late 18th Century where it is today.