Lot Essay
The subject of this drawing was identified by Nicholas Turner. The technique of red chalk heightened with white is unusual and only one other drawing in this medium is recorded in Davis's catalogue raisonné of the artist's drawings, the Cyrus watering the Orange Tree related to a fresco in Palazzo Pitti, Florence of circa 1663-4, B.W. Davis, op. cit., p. 214, no. 96045, pl. 56. The dating of Ferri's drawing is problematic as many, like the present work, are not related to known pictures, and the influence of Pietro da Cortona endured throughout his career. The present drawing is presumably a mature work as the elongated figures and the assured handling of chalk are comparable with studies such as The Blessed Stanislas Kostka in Ecstasy of the 1670s at Oberlin, B.W. Davis, op. cit., p. 239, no. 74.56, pl. 159. Saint Francis and Saint Dominic met in Rome at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, and possibly at the Porziuncola three years later