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Lot Essay
One of the most striking features in Annibale's head studies is a certain immediacy and presence of the sitter, setting his drawings apart from the achievements of the previous mannerist generation. Such is the case with the present drawing, which is comparable to Annibale's study of two girls in the Louvre (Le dessin Bologne 1580-1620. La rforme des trois Carracci, exhib. cat., 1994, no. 43), or a drawing of a young girl, her eyes down cast, at Chatsworth, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and elsewhere, Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections, exhib. cat., 1996, no. 56, illustrated. With the Paris drawing the present sheet shares the softness of the hatching within a clearly defined contour, reinforced with the black, greasy chalk typical of Annibale's drawings.
The drawing can not be connected with a specific figure in a painting or fresco, thus raising the question of the time of its execution. The coiffure and the loose handling of the chalk in the area of the hair show Venetian influences, which would suggest a rather early date. On the other hand, the head also displays monumentality as well as a certain masculinity that seems to presume the knowledge of Michelangelo, Raphael and classic Roman art. Although the head cannot be connected with any particular painting, it is close in type to the female heads in Hercules at the Crossroads, one of Annibale's earliest Roman works, painted in 1595 for the ceiling of the Camerino at the Palazzo Farnese, and now at the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, D. Posner, Annibale Carracci. A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting around 1590, London, 1971, fig. 93a.
Very similar to the present drawing is the head of Anchises in the fresco of Venus and Anchises on the ceiling of the Farnese Gallery (D. Posner, op.cit., fig. 111s), which demonstrates the ambiguity between female and male, characteristic of many figures in the Farnese Gallery frescoes, showing Annibale's references to Michelangelo.
The drawing can not be connected with a specific figure in a painting or fresco, thus raising the question of the time of its execution. The coiffure and the loose handling of the chalk in the area of the hair show Venetian influences, which would suggest a rather early date. On the other hand, the head also displays monumentality as well as a certain masculinity that seems to presume the knowledge of Michelangelo, Raphael and classic Roman art. Although the head cannot be connected with any particular painting, it is close in type to the female heads in Hercules at the Crossroads, one of Annibale's earliest Roman works, painted in 1595 for the ceiling of the Camerino at the Palazzo Farnese, and now at the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, D. Posner, Annibale Carracci. A Study in the Reform of Italian Painting around 1590, London, 1971, fig. 93a.
Very similar to the present drawing is the head of Anchises in the fresco of Venus and Anchises on the ceiling of the Farnese Gallery (D. Posner, op.cit., fig. 111s), which demonstrates the ambiguity between female and male, characteristic of many figures in the Farnese Gallery frescoes, showing Annibale's references to Michelangelo.