Object types
drawing (scope note | all objects)
Materials
paper (all objects)
Techniques
drawn (scope note | all objects)
Production person
Drawn by Carlo Maratti (biographical details | all objects)
Date
1640-1713
Schools /Styles
Roman (all objects)
Description
Beato Pietro Igneo Aldobrandini passing unharmed though the flames, study for a composition
Pen and brown ink
Inscriptions
Inscription Content: Turner 1999
Inscribed in pencil in lower right, partly cut by the edge of the sheet: "C. Marrat". On the old, nineteenth-century mount are a number of inscriptions: in black ink, in the lower centre: "Carlo Maratti", and in the same hand, lower right: "See back of the drawing"; in pencil, lower centre: "15/4". The inscription in black ink on the back of the drawing: "Al il Mio e P[ad]ron[e]/M. Carlo Maratta Pittar Pri" shows that the sheet was first used as the cover of a letter to Maratti. The back of the mount is also inscribed in black ink: "x61BX"; below, in black ink, in a different hand: "Panton Betew's/ Sale 1799"; and lower centre, in pencil, in another hand: "Tait Am 900/May 18/1840".
Dimensions
Height: 317 millimetres
Width: 223 millimetres
Curator's comments
Lit.: N. Turner, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Roman Baroque Drawings', London, 1999, I, no. 196
Turner 1999
As Rudolph was the first to point out, this is a study, in reverse and with many differences, for a composition by Maratti recorded in a print by Giovanni Battista Lapi (d.1772), dated 1736 (Rudolph, 1978, p. 198, fig. 21). The print, which gives Maratti as the inventor, appeared as one of the illustrations in G. M. Brocchi's 'Vita del Beato Michele Flammini, Abate Generale di Vallombrosa' (Florence, 1761, p. 233). The drawing must date from the end of the artist's life when, unable to paint because of ill-health, he was much occupied with making designs for engravings; such a dating is supported by the untidy yet still robust style of the drawing.
Beato Pietro Aldobrandini, surnamed Igneus, was a Vallombrosan monk from a prominent Florentine family, who later became Cardinal Bishop of Albano. In 1063, in a dispute between the Florentine citizens and Pope Alexander II over the Pope's appointment of the simoniacal Peter of Pavia as Archbishop of Florence, it was decided that God should judge the legality of the appointment through the ordeal of fire. On behalf of Florence, Pietro Aldobrandini undertook the fiery test and, wearing only his alb, maniple and stole and carrying a cross in his hand, he passed between two flaming piles of wood unharmed. The citizens of Florence were therefore vindicated and the archbishop was deposed.
Literature: London, 1964, no.20; Rudolph, 1978, pp. 198-9
Acquisition date
1989
Acquisition name
Donated by John Morton Morris (biographical details | all objects)
Previous owner/ex-collection Panton Betew (? sale King, Chelsea, 12-14 June 1799) (biographical details | all objects)
Previous owner/ex-collection John Gaskin (Sotheby's, 18.iv.1989/79, as Giuseppe Passeri) (biographical details | all objects)
Previous owner/ex-collection Anthony Blunt (biographical details | all objects)
Previous owner/ex-collection Bindon Blood (L.3011) (biographical details | all objects)
Exhibition History
1991 Jan-April, BM, Recent Acquisitions (no cat.)
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