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Lot Essay
This figure, energetically sketched with bold and expressive lines, is impressive in its modern appearance. Drawn with vigorous and fluid strokes, the seated man is delineated with essential lines in an almost abstract manner. The drawing is a fine document of Agostino Carracci’s mature and confident graphic style at the end of his brief career, around 1600.
The figure has been connected to a series of studies related to Agostino’s best-known print, depicting Saint Jerome. The engraving was left unfinished at the artist’s death, but its elaborate and careful creation is particularly well documented thanks to a group of related pen and ink studies (D. DeGrazia Bohlin, Prints and Related Drawings by the Carracci Family. A Catalogue Raisonné, exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1979, no. 213 ill.). In the preparatory drawings, Agostino experimented with different positions and directions for the pose of Saint Jerome before settling on the final composition. While ultimately in the print the saint was depicted in profile kneeling, on the verso of a double-sided sheet in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt Agostino sketched different alternatives for his pose; some of these sketches are close to the seated figure in the present drawing (inv. 5656V Z; idem).
A quick pen sketch of this same figure appears in reverse on one of Agostino’s sheets, with red chalk studies of a face, in the Royal Collection at Windsor (fig. 1; inv. RL 02164. See R. Wittkower, The Drawings of the Carracci in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London, 1952, no. 145).
When in 2006 the drawing was offered for sale at auction (Thierry de Maigret, Paris, 8 December 2006, lot 66) the drawing had been joined together, probably by an early collector, with another sheet, Standing bearded male nude seen from behind with his arm raised, now in the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris (inv. 2025-T.26).
The figure has been connected to a series of studies related to Agostino’s best-known print, depicting Saint Jerome. The engraving was left unfinished at the artist’s death, but its elaborate and careful creation is particularly well documented thanks to a group of related pen and ink studies (D. DeGrazia Bohlin, Prints and Related Drawings by the Carracci Family. A Catalogue Raisonné, exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1979, no. 213 ill.). In the preparatory drawings, Agostino experimented with different positions and directions for the pose of Saint Jerome before settling on the final composition. While ultimately in the print the saint was depicted in profile kneeling, on the verso of a double-sided sheet in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt Agostino sketched different alternatives for his pose; some of these sketches are close to the seated figure in the present drawing (inv. 5656V Z; idem).
A quick pen sketch of this same figure appears in reverse on one of Agostino’s sheets, with red chalk studies of a face, in the Royal Collection at Windsor (fig. 1; inv. RL 02164. See R. Wittkower, The Drawings of the Carracci in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London, 1952, no. 145).
When in 2006 the drawing was offered for sale at auction (Thierry de Maigret, Paris, 8 December 2006, lot 66) the drawing had been joined together, probably by an early collector, with another sheet, Standing bearded male nude seen from behind with his arm raised, now in the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris (inv. 2025-T.26).