An angel playing the lute, with two putti

Drawn on blue paper in Fiammenghino’s typical technique, fine pen lines and broad passages of white gouache, this sheet was recognized by Ugo Ruggeri through a photograph in the Witt Library as a preparatory drawing for one of the three roundels frescoed on the vault of the chapel of Sacred Heart in Sant’Alessandro, Milan (Fig. 1). Completed by 1613, the decoration of the chapel was carried out by Moncalvo with Fiammenghino, as first recorded by Torre (1674) and later confirmed by modern scholars, who attributed to the latter the series of angels with putti playing music on the vault (M.C. Terzaghi, in M. Gregori, ed., Pittura a Milano dal Seicento al Neoclassicismo, Milan, 1999, p. 220). Notable differences between the drawing and the final fresco include the position of the angel’s wings and the legs of the putto at right. The artist is responding here to the robust style of Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, calle Morazzone and the illustrious Lombard model of Gaudenzio Ferrari.

Fig. 1. Giovanni Mauro della Rovere, il Fiammenghino and Guglielmo Caccia, il Moncalvo, Angels and putti playing music, 1613, Sant’Alessandro, Milan.