Study of a reclining Youth, leaning to the Right

Details

PIETRO FACCINI (1560-1602)
Study of a reclining Youth, leaning to the Right
with inscription 'Coreggio.' (lower left)
red chalk, the upper corners cut, on paper, watermark fleur-de-lys in a shield
9 3⁄8 x 12 7⁄8 in. (23.7 x 33 cm.)

Provenance

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), London (L. 2364), by descent to his niece
Mary Palmer, later Countess of Inchiquin and Marchioness of Thomond (1750-1820); probably the posthumous Reynolds sales, A. C. de Poggi, London, 26 May 1794 or H. Philips, London, 5-26 March 1798.
Probably John Bacon Sawrey Morritt (1772-1843), Rokeby Park, nr. Barnard Castle, County Durham, by descent to
Major Henry Edward Morritt (1880-1960), Rokeby Park, presumably by descent to
Robin Morritt, Rokeby Park.
Ian Woodner (1903-1990), New York; his estate sale, Christie's, London, 6 July 1991, lot 105 (as attributed to Annibale Carracci).
P. & D. Colnaghi, London.
James Fairfax (1933-2017), Bowral, New South Wales, Australia, by whom acquired from the above.
Anonymous sale; Christie’s, New York, 27 January 2010, lot 111.
Acquired at the above sale.

Literature

C. Legrand, Le dessin à Bologne 1580-1620. La réforme des trois Carracci, exh. cat., Paris, musée du Louvre, 1994, p. 101, under no. 66.
J. Goldman, ‘A New Attribution to Pietro Faccini’, Antichità viva, XXXV, 1996, nos. 2-3, pp. 28-29, fig. 3.
R. Beresford and P. Raissis, The James Fairfax Collection of Old Master Paintings, Drawings and Prints, exh. cat., Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2003, pp. 82-83, no. 21.
D. Esposito, Sir Joshua Reynolds. The Acquisition of Genius, exh. cat., Plymouth, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, 2009-2010, p. 129, under no. 55.
M. Di Giampaolo, Pietro Faccini (Bologna, 1562-1602), eds. D. Cingottini and N. Schwed, Rome, 2026, no. 128.

Exhibited

New York and London, P. & D. Colnaghi, Master Drawings, 1992, no. 18, ill.
Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, The James Fairfax Collection of Old Master Paintings, Drawings and Prints, 2003, no. 21, ill.
New York, Nicholas Hall, Metamorphosis: Liu Dan’s Fantastic Landscape and the Renaissance, 2018, pp. 46-49, ill.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Pietro Faccini received his training at the Carracci Academy in Bologna before opening his own art school in the late 1590s. In his works he was influenced not just by the Carraccis' return to naturalism, but also by the elegance of Correggio (1489-1534). The inscription at lower left shows that at one point the drawing was believed to be by Correggio.

The figure is inspired by those of Correggio in the lower section of the frescoes in the cupola of the Duomo at Parma. The drawing also shows the influence of Annibale Carracci (1560-1609) in the use of soft, stumped red chalk, and probably dates to the period when Faccini was studying with Annibale in the late 1580s. As has been noted - the model for this drawing, a young boy with wild curly hair and large eyes - seems to appear also in studies by Annibale himself (Esposito, op. cit., p. 129).

The sheet is close to a drawing by Faccini showing a nude in a similar technique in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (D. DeGrazia, Correggio and His Legacy. Sixteenth-Century Emilian Drawings, exh. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, under no. 128, fig. 128b).

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