A company of artists watching a mountebank show, from left to right: Giovanni Lanfranco, Sisto Badalocchio, Francesco Giovanni Gessi, Doctor Albertinelli, Giacomo Cavedone, Alessandro Tiarini and another figure

Details

Francesco Albani (Bologna 1578-1660)
A company of artists watching a mountebank show, from left to right: Giovanni Lanfranco, Sisto Badalocchio, Francesco Giovanni Gessi, Doctor Albertinelli, Giacomo Cavedone, Alessandro Tiarini and another figure
with inscription 'Varij Ritratti di Pittori Caricati da Franc. Albano; cioè, Lanfranchi, Sisto Badalochio, il Gessi, il Dottor Albertinelli suo amico, il Cavedone, il Tiarini, & altri Pittori di quel Tempo' (verso, laid down)
red chalk
8¼ x 11 7/8 in. (208 x 303 mm.)

Provenance

J. Richardson Jun. (L. 2170), the remains of his mount with his transcription of the inscription (cf. L. 2997).
C. Rogers (L. 624).
Sir Thomas Lawrence (L. 2445).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, 25 May 1938, lot 5 (£2.10s.).
Purchased from Dr. Edmund Schilling, July 1939 (£2.10s.).

Engraved

By William Wynne Rylands, in 1773, for C. Rogers, A Collection of Prints in Imitation of Drawings, to which are annexed lives of their authors with explanatory and critical notes, London, 1778, II, p. 82.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

In comparison to Bolognese contemporaries such as Domenichino, Guido Reni and Guercino, Albani's corpus of drawings is small. However as a member of the Carracci circle it would seem strange if he did not draw at least a few caricatures, as the old inscription on the verso of this drawing would suggest. Albani was a successful teacher, and his studio produced a number of notable caricaturists such as Pier Francesco Mola (see lots 34-37 in the present sale). The artists caricatured in this drawing were all 'graduates' of the Carracci Academy. A terminus post quem for the present sheet is 1647, the year Badalocchio died.

James Byam Shaw adduces the print after this composition to attribute a drawing at Christ Church to Albani (J. Byam Shaw, Drawings by Old Masters at Christ Church Oxford, Oxford, 1967, I, no. 981, II, pl. 588).

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