An allegory of Night

Until recently the drawing was part of an 18th Century album that had been in the collection of John Bouverie, an English gentleman who acquired a large number of drawings in Bologna before his premature death in 1750 (Exhibition of European Master Drawings, op. cit.). This sheet can be compared with two other similar drawings in the Escola Superior de Belas Artes in Oporto (see I exposição da Escola Superior de Belas Artes do Porto, exhib. cat., Oporto, Escola Superior de Belas Artes, 1962, nos. 83, 84), as well as with an interesting group of drawings, each representing a planet or divinity on a chariot in the Royal Collection at Windsor (inv. RCIN 903819-RCIN 903822; see O. Kurz, Bolognese Drawings of the XVII and XVIII Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London, 1955, nos. 690-693, ill.).