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Lot Essay
Featured on the upper section are Anne and Joachim meeting at the Golden Gate, while God the Father is sending them the soul of the Virgin (the animula). The subject of this powerful, unpublished drawing is the Immaculate Conception, witnessed by the four prophets seated or standing right below. The attribution to the Bolognese Pietro Faccini recorded by Ottley is confirmed by the style of the drawing, characterized by the artist’s vigour, bold brush technique and predilection for multi-leveled compositions.
As suggested by Michele Danieli, the present work is a finished modello for a lost painting once adorning the altar of Saint Anne in the church of San Giacomo, Bologna. Described by early sources, it was painted by Faccini’s pupil Agostino Marcucci (“dipinse in S. Giacomo maggiore, dietro il Coro, la tavola dell’Altare de’ Cantofoli, detto di S. Anna, dove sono alcuni profeti”; A. Masini, Bologna perlustrata, Bologna, 1650, p. 733). As the panel is now lost, the present sheet constitutes a crucial visual record of its original appearance. Although the painting appears to have been executed by an Marcucci, the present drawing is clearly by the hand of the master, who supplied his pupils and younger assistants with his designs. The few surviving works by Marcucci – the Death of the Virgin in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna and the Procession at the Museo Civico of Siena – prove that the confidence and intelligence of this sheet are out of his league.
We are grateful to Michele Danieli for his assistance in cataloguing this drawing and for confirming the attribution to Pietro Faccini on the basis of a digital photograph.
As suggested by Michele Danieli, the present work is a finished modello for a lost painting once adorning the altar of Saint Anne in the church of San Giacomo, Bologna. Described by early sources, it was painted by Faccini’s pupil Agostino Marcucci (“dipinse in S. Giacomo maggiore, dietro il Coro, la tavola dell’Altare de’ Cantofoli, detto di S. Anna, dove sono alcuni profeti”; A. Masini, Bologna perlustrata, Bologna, 1650, p. 733). As the panel is now lost, the present sheet constitutes a crucial visual record of its original appearance. Although the painting appears to have been executed by an Marcucci, the present drawing is clearly by the hand of the master, who supplied his pupils and younger assistants with his designs. The few surviving works by Marcucci – the Death of the Virgin in the Pinacoteca Nazionale of Bologna and the Procession at the Museo Civico of Siena – prove that the confidence and intelligence of this sheet are out of his league.
We are grateful to Michele Danieli for his assistance in cataloguing this drawing and for confirming the attribution to Pietro Faccini on the basis of a digital photograph.