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Artist: Andrea Boscoli (Italian, 1550-1606)
Medium: brush and grey wash over black chalk and graphite on paper
Dimensions: 9 1/8 in. x 5 1/2 in. (23.2 cm. x 14 cm.)
Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ III
Accession Number: 1811.7
- "15"
Type: inscription
Location: verso
Materials: graphite - "Mola"
Type: inscription
Location: former mount (removed)
Materials: graphite
- James ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
- ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
- Old Master Drawings at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College
- ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
- Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
- University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
- Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
- From Studio to Studiolo: Florentine Draftsmanship . . .
- Drawing on Basics
- ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
- Old Master Drawings from the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Museum of Art
- Timken Museum of Art. ( 5/13/2005 - 8/14/2005)
Type: catalogue Author: Henry Johnson Document Title: Catalogue of the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Art Collections Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 20 Remarks: (as Mola) Section Title: Pt. I, The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ Drawings Date: 1885 Type: catalogue Author: ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Museum of Art Document Title: ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building Edition: 4th Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 20 Remarks: (as Mola) Publisher: ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . . Date: 1930 Type: exhibition catalogue Author: David P. Becker Document Title: Old Master Drawings at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Location: pp. 102-103 Reference: no. 47 Publisher: ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Date: 1985 Type: exhibition catalogue Author: Larry J. Feinberg and karen-edis Barzman Document Title: From Studio to Studiolo Publ. Place: Oberlin Location: p. 72 Reference: b&w Illus. p. 73 Publisher: Oberlin College Section Title: Florentine Draftsmanship Under the First Medici Grand Dukes Date: 1991
After carrying an unlikely attribution to a seventeenth-century artist, Pier Francesco Mola, this drawing was recognized as a thoroughly characteristic work by Boscoli. Many drawings of his survive (principally in the Uffizi) and often show the typical facetted surfaces of his figures evident here. He made quite a few copies from other masters. François Viatte has remarked on Boscoli's strong stylistic connections with the many northern artists who were working in Italy during the late sixteenth century, forerunners of the later northern mannerists, such as Bartholomaeus Spranger (1546-1611) and Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) (Viatte and Monbeig Goguel, 62-64).
The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ drawing can be related to an altarpiece in Sant'Ambrogio in Florence (fig. 1), dating from 1596/97, for which it is a close study (Forlani Tempesti, 129). Jacopo Guidoni, the prior of Santissimi Apostoli, commissioned the painting for his chapel in Sant'Ambrogio (Bastogi, 136 and 245). The major modifications in the painting are the closing of the vista and the enlargement of the ecclesiastical figure in the right background. A related drawing very close in conception and dimensions is in the Museo Cerralbo, Madrid (Museo Cerralbo, cat. no. 10). That sheet is probably earlier than the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ version, for the figure in the right distance is even less resolved, and the perspective lines of the composition are quite apparent beneath the figures. The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ sheet appears to be a carefully prepared modello, or final composition study presented to the patron, with subtle application of washes. Forlani Tempesti indicates a probable preliminary study for this commission in a horizontal format in the Uffizi (Forlani Tempesti 146). Bastogi attributes the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ drawing to the studio of Boscoli although other scholars have argued that the work is by the artist himself (245 and 313-14).
David P. Becker (edited by Sarah Cantor)
References:
Bastogi, Nadia. Andrea Boscoli. Florence: Edifir, 2008.
Forlani Tempesti, Anna. "Andrea Boscoli." Proporzione 4 (1963): 85-208.
Museo Cerralbo: catálago de dibujos. Madrid: Comisaría Nacional de Museos y Exposiciones, 1976.
Viatte, François, and Catherine Monbeig Goguel. Dessins baroques florentines du musée du Louvre. Paris: Ministère de la culture, 1981.
Images:
Fig. 1: Andrea Boscoli The Visitation, 1596/97, oil on canvas, Sant’Ambrogio, Florence Source: Bastogi, Nadia. Andrea Boscoli. Florence: Edifir, 2008, fig. 138
Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College (Brunswick: ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø±¬ÍøÕ¾ College Museum of Art, 1985).