Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery

Details

Agostino Carracci (Bologna 1557-1602 Parma)
Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery
with inscription ‘Annibal Carache’ and ‘Ecole Lombarde.’ (on the recto of the mount), and ‘[...] La Femme adultere/ Dessin a la plume’ and ‘Annibal Carache’ (on the verso of the mount)
pen and brown ink
8 1/8 x 9 7/8 in. (20.7 x 25.2 cm)

Provenance

Alliance des Arts (1842-circa 1848), Paris (L. 61 and L. 6b).
Anonymous sale; Gutekunst und Klipstein, Bern, 5-6 October 1950, lot 22.
Anonymous sale; Norbert Ketterer, 19-21 May 1953, lot 403, where acquired by Robert Landolt (L. 2223a).

Literature

D. Posner, ‘Letter to the Editor’, Master Drawings, VIII, 1970, no. 1, p. 59, fig. 2.
C. Johnston, Il Seicento e il Settecento a Bologna, Milan, 1971, pp. 81-82.
C. Robertson, in Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections, exhib. cat., Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1996, p. 81, under no. 37.
P. Bjurström et al., in Italian Drawings, Florence, Siena, Modena, Bologna, exhib. cat., Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 2002, under no. 1357 (pages unnumbered).

Exhibited

Zurich, Graphische Sammlung ETH, Zwiegespräch mit Zeichnungen. Werke des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts aus der Sammlung Robert Landolt, 2013-2014, no. 20, ill. (catalogue entry by M. Matile).

Special notice

These lots have been imported from outside the EU or, if the UK has withdrawn from the EU without an agreed transition deal, from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

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Stijn Alsteens

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Lot Essay

This drawing is related to a close collaboration between the three Carracci, a commission for overdoor paintings for the Palazzo Sampieri in Bologna, now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan, dated 1593-1595 (see F. Zeri et al., Pinacoteca di Brera. Scuola emiliana, Milan, 1991, nos. 67, 71 and 76, ill.). The three works illustrate passages from the New Testament: the picture by Annibale Christ and the Samaritan woman; that of his cousin Ludovico Christ and the woman at Cana; and the one by Agostino (Fig. 1), Annibale’s brother, the scene in the present drawing (John, 8:3-11).

Several other studies by Agostino for the painting exist: two, also in pen and brown ink, in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (inv. NM919/1863 and NM910/1863; see P. Bjürström, C. Loisel and E. Pilliod, Italian Drawings. Florence, Siena, Modena, Bologna, Stockholm, 2002, nos. 1357-1358, ill.), one heightened with white on brown paper at the Bristish Museum (inv. 1913,0111.3; see C. Robertson, op. cit., no. 37, ill.), and a figure study of Christ in black chalk on blue paper, heightened with white chalk, in the Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest (inv. 1863; see A. Czére, Disegni di artisti bolognesi nel museo delle arti di Budapest, Bologna, 1989, no. 16, ill.).

In each of these compositional sketches the background differs considerably, as do the positions of the figures. The final painting is different yet again, with Christ standing at left (in the pose of the Budapest study) and the woman at right. The crowd of onlookers in the Landolt drawing has been sacrificed, resulting in a more concentrated composition; it must be among the earliest sketches Agostino made for his painted contribution to the commission.

Fig. 1. Agostino Carracci, Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

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