Studies of four putti and five heads of children (recto); Studies of putti and heads (verso)

Girolamo Genga was a pupil of Luca Signorelli (circa 1445-1523) and worked also with Pietro Perugino (circa 1448-1523). Both masters deeply influenced his style. Genga was active in several cities in Tuscany and in Romagna. It was in Cesena that he received one of his most significant commissions: an altarpiece for the friars of Sant’Agostino depicting the Dispute over the Immaculate Conception, now in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan (inv. 159; on this painting and the related preparatory drawings see Rinaldi, op. cit., pp. 14-21).

The present drawing has been dated around 1513-1516, the time when Genga had just begun work on the Cesena altarpiece. The red chalk studies are close to those on two sheets by the artist in the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie in Besançon, also preparatory for the painting (inv. D1887 and D1886; Rinaldi, op. cit., no. A10 and A11, ill.). Both the present drawing and the ones in Besançon are numbered, an indication that they might have been originally part of a sketchbook used as a repertoire of motifs that Genga consulted to determine the poses of the many putti in the painting. The boy with the arms crossed on the present drawing is elaborated in a more complete figure in one of the studies in Besançon (inv. D1887).

Fig. 1. Girolamo Genga, Dispute over the Immaculate Conception. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.