drawing
- Museum number
- 1946,0713.82
- Description
-
A kneeling bishop, in profile to right
Black chalk, heightened with white, on brown prepared paper, varnished
- Production date
- 1592-1660
- Dimensions
-
Height: 370 millimetres
-
Width: 267 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- A.E. Popham in Fenwick catalogue: 'a particularly fine and undoubted example of Cavedone'. Emilio Negro identified this as a study for St Nicholas of Bari (also known as Nicholas of Myra) in the upper register of Cavedone's newly discovered altarpiece in S. Maria Maggiore, Castel S. Pietro (Bologna) which is dated to the 1620s in the recent monograph. In the drawing the saint seems to be holding a ball (three golden balls are his best known attribute from his act of charity in giving them as a dowry to save three girls from prostitution) while in the painting the Christ Child appears to be handing him a rope, a reference to Nicholas's status as the patron saint of mariners. Negro and Roio associate two other drawings with the Castel S. Pietro painting: a head of a baby in Berlin (16163; Negro and Roio no. 66.1) which is lit from the opposite direction and studies of infants hands in the Louvre (6273; their no. 115.1). Although both appear to be by Cavedone, neither drawing is close enough to the painting to be sure that that were drawn specifically for it.
HC
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', London, 1935, p. 134, no. 1; E. Negro, 'Giacomo Cavedone', in E. Negro and M. Pirondini, 'La scuola dei Carracci Dall'accademia alla bottega di Ludovico', Modena, 1994, p. 111, fig. 65.1; E. Negro and N. Roio, 'Giacomo Cavedone 1577-1660', Modena, 1996, no. 65.1
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1946
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1946,0713.82
