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Lot Essay
This sheet, together with following two lots in the present sale, were part of an album of drawings by Finiguerra and his studio formerly in the Pelli-Fabroni Collection, Florence, dispersed in Geneva in 1947. Other drawings from this dispersal are in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (L. Melli, op. cit., nos. 127-8, 134-138), formerly in the collection of Sir Robert Witt, London (L. Melli, op. cit., no. 141), and in private collections (L. Melli, op. cit., nos. 139-140, 142-144).
Other groups of drawings by Finiguerra were in albums belonging to Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, probably formerly in Vasari's collection, and now in the Uffizi, Florence (L. Melli, op. cit., nos. 1-99) and in an album bequeathed by Léon Bonnat to the Louvre in 1922 (L. Melli, op. cit., nos. 100-122).
The drawings are characterised by a continuous, flowing line in pen and ink with volumes indicated by softly modulated wash. The majority of the surviving sheets represent youths, apparently studio assistants, in stock poses, together with details of their heads and limbs. These may represent the remnants of Maso's studio pattern-books, almost certainly part of the 14 albums which Doris Carl has shown were inherited by his family, L. Whitaker, 'Maso Finiguerra and Early Florentine printmaking' in S. Currie (ed.), Drawing 1400-1600, Invention and Innovation, London, 1998, p. 48. The arrangement of the figures on the recto of present lot appears to be derived from a relief panel of the Death of Pentheus on a sarcophagus, dated to the 2nd Century A.D., now in the Campo Santo, Pisa, P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, op. cit., no. 87.
Another version of this composition is in the Royal Library, Turin, A. Bertini, I disegni Italiani della Biblioteca Reale di Torino, Rome, 1957, no. 17, illustrated (as School of Antonio Pollaiuolo). This drawing has recently been reattributed to Finiguerra by Antonio Natali, A. Petrioli Tofani, Il disegno Fiorentino del tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico, exhib. cat., Florence, Uffizi, 1992, pp. 24-5, no. 1.2.
Other groups of drawings by Finiguerra were in albums belonging to Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici, probably formerly in Vasari's collection, and now in the Uffizi, Florence (L. Melli, op. cit., nos. 1-99) and in an album bequeathed by Léon Bonnat to the Louvre in 1922 (L. Melli, op. cit., nos. 100-122).
The drawings are characterised by a continuous, flowing line in pen and ink with volumes indicated by softly modulated wash. The majority of the surviving sheets represent youths, apparently studio assistants, in stock poses, together with details of their heads and limbs. These may represent the remnants of Maso's studio pattern-books, almost certainly part of the 14 albums which Doris Carl has shown were inherited by his family, L. Whitaker, 'Maso Finiguerra and Early Florentine printmaking' in S. Currie (ed.), Drawing 1400-1600, Invention and Innovation, London, 1998, p. 48. The arrangement of the figures on the recto of present lot appears to be derived from a relief panel of the Death of Pentheus on a sarcophagus, dated to the 2nd Century A.D., now in the Campo Santo, Pisa, P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, op. cit., no. 87.
Another version of this composition is in the Royal Library, Turin, A. Bertini, I disegni Italiani della Biblioteca Reale di Torino, Rome, 1957, no. 17, illustrated (as School of Antonio Pollaiuolo). This drawing has recently been reattributed to Finiguerra by Antonio Natali, A. Petrioli Tofani, Il disegno Fiorentino del tempo di Lorenzo il Magnifico, exhib. cat., Florence, Uffizi, 1992, pp. 24-5, no. 1.2.