drawing
- Museum number
- Pp,2.124
- Description
-
Augustus and the sibyl, study for a painting; a group of figures surrounding, the sibyl pointing to the Virgin and Child above a church at l, classical architecture and arches behind, a nude man reclining in the foreground
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash
- Production date
- 1513-1561
- Dimensions
-
Height: 325 millimetres
-
Width: 269 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Study for a panel painting then in the collection of Charles Fairfax Murray, which recently appeared in an auction in Florence (Sotheby Parke Bennet Italy, 23.v.1979/963). This is now in a private collection, Venice (see Fiamminghini a Roma cat. for reference)
Watermark: ladder in a double cartouche.
See also: Pp,3.27* (alternative figure related to the composition) mounted with the drawing.
Lit: J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, Artists working in Rome', London, 1983, no. 124
Gere & Pouncey 1983
Pp.2,124 was attributed to Franco in Henry Josi's Inventory of 1837 (this probably reflects an earlier opinion: see Pp,2.123), but in Carpenter's 1845 Inventory of the Payne Knight Collection it appears under the name of "Salviati". Louis Fagan returned to the Franco attribution in his MS catalogue of c. 1885, in which he noted that the drawing is a study for a panel painting then in the collection of Charles Fairfax Murray, which recently reappeared in an auction in Florence (Sotheby Parke Bernet Italia, 1979, 23 May, lot 963, repr.). A number of minor modifications can be seen in the painted version.
A detached pentimento for the figure on the l. of the principal group was identified by Popham among the unmounted and unattributed residue of the Payne Knight Bequest. The figure is as in the painting, with the l. arm not extended. The reproduction on pl. 118 shows the drawing with the pentimento; the detail on pl. 119 is of the figure in its original pose.
Antal had suggested an attribution to Pirro Ligorio for Pp,2.124. Popham rejected this in favour of one to Girolamo da Carpi, but later reverted to the original attribution to Franco, with which we agree.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1995 Feb-May, Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Fiamminghi a Roma 1508-1608, no. 93
1995 June-Sep, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizione, Fiamminghi a Roma 1508-1608
- Acquisition date
- 1824
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Pp,2.124