drawing;
album
- Museum number
- 1952,0121.5
- Description
-
Holy Family
Red chalk
Verso: Figure seated on the ground (laid down)
Red chalk
- Production date
- 1658-1697
- Dimensions
-
Height: 260 millimetres
-
Width: 193 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit.: N. Turner, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Roman Baroque Drawings', London, 1999, I, no. 130
Turner 1999
The composition of the drawing recalls Giacinto Gimignani's etching of the same subject, dated 1672 (Bartsch, 1803-21, xx, p. 197, no. 1). The draughtsmanship is not unlike that found in other drawings by Ludovico and the sketch may well be his autograph 'ricordo' of his father's print, as the inscription on the verso implies.
The drawing on the verso, which shows through the backing, is too slight to justify lifting the sheet.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1952
- Acquisition notes
- One of ninety drawings from the Cavendish album; see 1952,0121.75 for a full account of provenance.
Turner 1999
From an album, known as the Cavendish Album, in which several drawings bear the mark of N. A. Flinck (L 959), whose collection was bought in 1723 by the 2nd Duke of Devonshire. Three of the drawings in the album were engraved by Pond with the inscription "E Museo Praehonlis Dni Dni Jacobi Cavendish". One of these engravings is dated 1734, a year in which two Lords James Cavendish were alive, the third son of the 1st Duke (d. 1751) and the second son of the 2nd Duke (d. 1741). It seems probable that the latter was the collector. There is reason to believe that the album was until about 1950 in the library of Lord Chesham, also a member of the Cavendish family. The Lord James Cavendish in question was a great-uncle of the 1st Lord Chesham.
A summary of the contents and provenance of the Cavendish Album, derived from notes by Popham at the British Museum and other more recent information written on the mounts of the drawings themselves, is given by Jaffé (1994 (a) and (b), p. 18).)
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1952,0121.5
