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Lot Essay
Illustrating a passage from Saint Mark's Gospel (I, 12-15), this sheet shows Christ served at the table by a group of angels after having been tempted by Satan in the desert. Popularized during the Counter-Reformation, the subject was also treated by Ludovico Carracci in a painting now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (inv. 85.2; A. Brogi, Ludovico Carracci, Bologna, 2001, no. 78, ill.).
Formerly thought to be by Domenico Passignano and more recently attributed to Bolognese artists such as Guido Reni, Francesco Brizio, and Agostino Carracci, the drawing has been recently recognized as an early work by Carlo Maratti by Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò (op. cit., p. 271). In a 2018 essay the scholar identified a group of anonymous drawings in Düsseldorf, all consistent in style and technique (a combination of red chalk and pen and brown ink), as works by the young Maratti. These studies attest how the artist was a prolific draftsman already in his twenties and how his style was deeply influenced by works by the Carracci and by other painters of the Bolognese school.
Formerly thought to be by Domenico Passignano and more recently attributed to Bolognese artists such as Guido Reni, Francesco Brizio, and Agostino Carracci, the drawing has been recently recognized as an early work by Carlo Maratti by Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò (op. cit., p. 271). In a 2018 essay the scholar identified a group of anonymous drawings in Düsseldorf, all consistent in style and technique (a combination of red chalk and pen and brown ink), as works by the young Maratti. These studies attest how the artist was a prolific draftsman already in his twenties and how his style was deeply influenced by works by the Carracci and by other painters of the Bolognese school.