- Museum number
- 1946,0713.1083
- Description
-
Cavalry skirmish; page from an album
Pen and brown ink, brown and grey wash
- Production date
- 1636-1676
- Dimensions
-
Height: 100 millimetres
-
Width: 154 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit.: A.E. Popham, 'Catalogue of Drawings in the Collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., F.R.S., now in the possession of his Grandson, T. Fitzroy Phillipps Fenwick of Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham', I, London, 1935, p. 215, no. 1; N. Turner, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Roman Baroque Drawings', London, 1999, I, no. 52 (with previous literature)
Turner 1999
As Edward Holt first pointed out (1966, pp. 345ff.), with the possible exception of 1946,0713.1108- 1109, the drawings in the British Museum's Giacomo Cortese volume are a fragment of what was originally a series of 72 drawings contained in a sketchbook, which, after the artist's death, passed into the possession of the Collegio Romano, Rome, and thence into the collection of the antiquarian and art historian Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1615-96). Subsequently the drawings were acquired by the great French collector Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), who had purchased them in Italy, presumably from Bellori's heirs. The early history of the Collegio Romano/Bellori/Crozat sketchbook may be reconstructed thanks to a note by P.-J. Mariette (1694-1774), who briefly described the sketchbook in the 1741 Crozat sale catalogue, as follows:
"Les soixante & douze petits Desseins ci-dessus formoient un Livret, dans lequel le Bourguignon disposoit les premieres pensées de ses tableaux avec un esprit & une intelligence, dont il n'y a guéres que lui qui füt capable; le Bellori l'achetta des Peres Jesuites du College Romain, après la mort de l'Auteur, soixante & dix écus Romains".
The large, untidily written numbers that appear on most of the sketches (1946,0713.1108 -1109 are exceptions and the absence of these numbers as well as some other indications may demonstrate that these two drawings did not come originally from the sketchbook) belong to a continuous numerical sequence, for which see Holt, 1966, pp. 345ff. These manuscript numbers were almost certainly applied to the drawings either when the 'Livret' was still in Crozat's possession or, more likely, shortly after Crozat's death in 1740, when his drawings were being lotted up for sale (similar numbers appear on drawings by other artists in this catalogue that also were formerly owned by him, e.g. 1968,0210.1; 1946,0713.1314-1946,0713.1315; 1946,0713.7793 and Pp,4.86).
The initiative for bringing together the group of drawings by Cortese from a number of different sources over what must have been a period of some years seems to have rested with Lawrence rather than with his friend and adviser, the Old Master drawings dealer Samuel Woodburn, from whom he so regularly bought. Besides carrying Lawrence's dry stamp (L 2445), each drawing is laid down on to a characteristic 'Lawrence' mount, probably also supplied by Woodburn, whose firm he seems to have entrusted with the matting of many of his drawings; while in Lawrence's collection, the drawings were almost certainly kept loose on these backings. The MS inventory of Lawrence's collection, compiled after his death in 1830 (a typescript of which is in the Department of Prints and Drawings, shelf-mark N.6.33), describes what must be the first 25 items in the album as follows (i.e. 1946,0713.1083-1107): "Twenty Five interesting and spirited drawings of Battles, by J. Cortese" (f. 85); these were placed in 'Case 11. Drawer 4.'. What are presumably the last five (1946,0713.1110-1114) are cited as "Five very interesting drawings of Battles by Bourgenone. The subjects for the Etchings" (f. 77); these were placed in 'Case 9. Drawer 5.'
The present binding of the British Museum volume (dark green buckram boards, with leather spine and corners of the same colour, with the title 'DRAWINGS BY J. COURTOIS (BORGOGNONE)' stamped in gold along the spine) was almost certainly made soon after the drawings entered the Museum in 1946. The presence of the Woodburn lot nos. 306/32, in pencil, at the upper centre of the front of each mount suggests that the mounts also remained loose when the drawings were sold as a single lot in 1860. The present arrangement of the material in the volume - consisting of the numbered sketchbook series first (1946,0713.1083-1107), followed by the two oddments that may not belong to the series (1946,0713.1108-1109), and concluding with the five drawings from the numbered series with some of their numerals erased, all five formerly in the collection of John Thane (1946,0713.1110-1114) - was almost certainly arrived at after the drawings were acquired by the Museum. John Thane (1748-1818) was a writer, print dealer and publisher. According to a report quoted by Lugt (under 2393), "He is reputed to have been very clever and very unscrupulous in 'restoring' prints", and it is possible that Thane himself may have been responsible for attempting to remove the old 'Crozat' numbers from the drawings.
The presence of the collector's mark of the Marquis de Lagoy (1764-1829) on two of the sheets (see 1946,0713.1103-1105) provides a fairly reliable 'terminus post quem' for the assembling of the group. According to Lugt, Woodburn purchased the cream of Lagoy's collection of Old Master drawings in 1820, selling them on shortly thereafter to the English collector Thomas Dimsdale (1758-1823). At Dimsdale's death three years later, the Lagoy drawings that Woodburn had sold him were acquired by Lawrence, along with the whole of the rest of Dimsdale's collection. Although certainly not among the 'cream' of Lagoy's collection, the two drawings by Giacomo must have been bought by Woodburn in 1820 all the same, since, according to Lugt, the only other sale of Lagoy's drawings took place in Paris on 17 April 1834 - five years after Lagoy's death and four years after that of Lawrence. The two drawings could have come into Lawrence's possession only as late as 1823, indicating that the group was still being collected in that year.
Lawrence was certainly successful in securing an impressive number of the drawings from the sketchbook series. But, as Popham first noted, two that he missed were to enter the British Museum in 1824 with the Payne Knight collection (see Pp,5.115 and Pp,5.114). One of them (Pp,5.115) is of interest because it bears two 'Crozat' numbers, "13" and "22", indicating that the original sequence of 72 drawings had been renumbered at least once by the same hand. The other (Pp,5.114) is no. 25 from the series. Ff,2.186, from the Cracherode Bequest, may be a third, though the number, possibly either "46" or "56", has been almost completely erased. In style and format this third drawing should be compared with the last five from the album (i.e. 1946,0713.1109-1114).
As Holt noted, another important fragment of the sketchbook series is in the Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre, Paris. Some are illustrated in his 1966 article, but many more are reproduced by Guiffrey and Marcel (1907-, iv, nos 2737-49). Others in collections elsewhere include: 'Battle Scene', collection of M. Gaston Delestre, Paris (repr. 'Burlington Magazine', cix, February 1967, fig. 67); 'Cavalry Engagement', formerly London art market (sale, Sotheby's, 11 December 1980, lot 32); 'Cavalry Battle', formerly London art market (sale, Christie's, 12 December 1978, lot 68); and 'Platoon of Horsemen', Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen (inv.no. 975-4-599; Guiducci, 1980, p. 38, fig. 3, and p. 40). Like Ff,2.186, the first three of these drawings belong in type to the last five in the British Museum album.
The old 'Crozat' numbering is surprisingly erratic, with several of the numerals being corrected by the hand responsible for writing the wrong ones in the first place (see also Pp,5.115). Two of the drawings in the album are numbered 1 (see 1946,0713.1083-1091), while two others are numbered 32 (see 1946,0713.1096-1097). The numerals inscribed on 1946,0713.1096 and 1946,0713.1098 are not the same as those first written, and it would appear that many of the '30's were first written as '20's. One can easily picture the confusion of some wretched auction-house clerk confronted, at the end of a long day, by so uniform and numerous a clutch of little drawings.
The small "+" that appears at the top of each of the drawings (it has been trimmed away on 1946,0713.1092; 1946,0713.1104-1946,0713.1109; 1946,0713.1113-1114)), has been explained by Holt as perhaps having a religious significance: Giacomo entered the Jesuit Order in 1657, and Holt believed the marking of his drawings with a cross might be associated with his vows. Such a mark also sometimes occurs on other drawings by the artist, e.g. 1860,0616.26. Certainly, its trimming away indicates that the format of the pages in the original 'Livret' was larger. 1946,0713.1083-1946,0713.1107 were trimmed at all four sides when the drawings were prepared for mounting. On the other hand, 1946,0713.1110-1114, the five drawings formerly in Thane's collection, retain a slightly larger format, showing that the drawn composition on the original sketchbook page, for this subsection of the series at least, was framed by an ink-line border drawn freehand by the artist. The base line of this frame is preserved in 1946,0713.1110-1112 and 1946,0713.1114), with lines at the sides in 1946,0713.1112-1113.
Why did Giacomo make the drawings and what purpose did they serve? The answer to these questions remains obscure. The artist's painted oeuvre is but an endless variation on the single theme of the battle and figurative details flow so freely from one composition to the next that tracing the motifs, let alone their development, is a task that remains to be undertaken. As Holt has concluded, the original sketchbook series was, perhaps, a collection of compositional ideas to which the artist would turn when looking for inspiration. Such a suggestion is supported by the presence from time to time in Giacomo's pictures of details taken from some of the drawings, e.g. 1946,0713.1083; 1946,0713.1091; 1946,0713.1097; 1946,0713.1101-1102; and 1946,0713.1104). Another possibility is that they came into being as ricordi, the painter simply scribbling down in the pages of his book a note of the appearance of a completed picture. An argument against such an explanation is the rarity of a correspondence between the drawings and the master's finished paintings (though one such instance is 1946,0713.1105). A final possibility (and one that is perhaps most likely) is that the drawings were made in connection with the artist's prints, perhaps for a collection that was in the end never realised. This hypothesis is supported by their small, uniform format and by the fact that they appear to be en série. Lawrence himself seems to have thought this of some, believing that five from Thane's collection were for Giacomo's 'etchings'. The reappearance in Giacomo's prints of some of the details from these drawings (e.g. 1946,0713.1110-1112) provides further support for such a conclusion.
Literature: Popham, 1935, I, pp. 215-19; Holt, 1966, pp. 345-50; Providence, Rhode Island, Minneapolis and elsewhere, 1983, p. 111, n.4, under no. 34; Cleveland, 1989, p.96, n. 3, under no.45; Consigli, 1994, p. 353; Rodinò, 1996, pp. 365-6.
Turner 1999
There are some analogies in composition, particularly in the riderless horse on the left, with two different pictures of a 'Battle Scene', one in the collection of the Duke of Beaufort at Badminton House, Gloucestershire (Courtauld Institute of Art, neg.no. B60/1329), and the other in the collection of the Earl of Plymouth (CIA, neg.no. B78/2368).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1946
- Acquisition notes
- See N. Turner, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Roman Baroque Drawings', London, 1999, I, no. 52 for a full account of provenance
Turner 1999
The sketchbook of 72 sheets, which had survived intact with the previous owners, was broken up to form these four lots); thenceforth the drawings were widely scattered, and the ownership of those that make up the British Museum volume, from the period of their dispersal after Crozat's sale to their acquisition by Lawrence, is largely unknown, except for 1946,0713.1103, 1946,0713.1105-1107 and 1946,0713.1108-1114; if, indeed, 1946,0713.1108-1946,0713.1109 belong to the group). The pencil inscription "306/32" in the upper centre of each of the mounts is a reference to the Woodburn sale.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1946,0713.1083
