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Liliane Fredericks
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Medium
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash over black chalk.
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Dimensions
95.00mm wide
181.00mm high
(3.74 inches wide 7.13 inches high)
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Literature:
Related readings: Gere J.A. and Pouncey P., Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum:Artists Working in Rome c.1550 to c.1640, I (London 1983), pp145-9.; Corregio and his Legacy: Sixteenth Century Emilian Drawings (exh. Cat. By D. De Grazia, Washington, DC, N.G.A., 1984), pp 340-43; Fuhring P., Design Into Art: Drawings for Architecture & Ornaments, The Lodewijk Houthakker Collection, London (1989); Huys J-P, ‘Raffaelino da Reggio (1550-1578). La personalite d’um jeune artiste ‘manieriste’, Annales d’Histoire de l’Art & d’Archaelogie, XXI (1999); Marciari J., Raffaelino da Reggio in the Vatican, Burl. Mag., March 2006, Vol. CXLVIII, pp 187-91.
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Condition:
Very good.
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Description / Expertise
In his writings, Baglione’s enthusiastic claim was that ‘if a man of such talent as Raffaelino had lived longer, he would have moved onto create amazing things ‘cose di stupori nella pitturi’ . Born in the town of Codemondo, near Reggio Emilia, Raffaelino Motta trained with Lelio Orsi in Novellara where he specialised in the decoration of several facades of palaces. By 1571, he was in Rome and soon found himself collaborating with Federico Zuccaro, one of Rome’s most important mannerist painters, in particular on the frescoes from the Life of St Catherine in the church of Santa Caterina dei Funari. Raffaelino also worked together with Lorenzo Sabatini in the Vatican and Giovanni de’ Vecchi on the decoration of the villa Farnese at Caprarola. As an independent artist, he painted frescoes for the Oratorio del Gonfalone as well as the churches of Santi Quattro Coronati and San Silvestro al Quirinale in Rome. Even though Raffaelino was mainly engaged on mural decorations and fresco projects during his short career, a handful of easel paintings by or attributed to him are known, in particular a Tobias and the Angel in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
As a draughtsman, the artist’s style is strongly indebted to Taddeo (and, to a lesser extent, Federicco) Zuccaro, as well as Perino del Vaga. Interestingly, during his short life, much was written by contemporaries in praise of his personality and his work , in particular Giovanni Pietro Chattard who travelled to Rome a century later. He wrote about “an inscription recording that Gregorio XIII had the Sale delle Paramenti in the Vatican frescoed in 1577”, that the frieze of the room includes “the Coat of Arms of Gregorio XIII Buoncompagni (1572-85)” and cites the artists involved as “Paris Nogari, Raffaelino da Reggio, Giambattista della Marca and Marco Marchetti”.
The attribution of the present sheet has been confirmed by Hugo Chapman and is based in particular on its closeness in style and technique with two drawings by the artist. The first sheet, Minerva leading Hercules and Mars, is in the British Museum, London and the other, The Ordination of Deacons , is in the Uffizi, Florence. In both works the draughtsman shows the same strong concern with weight and volume, suggested by bold, generalized and realistic observation. Indeed, it is through his energetic pen lines and spontaneous simplification of contour that Raffaelino creates an illusion of relief and three-dimensional vision, his main preoccupation being essentially tied to the movement of the human figure. In the British Museum sheet, the artist’s concern with leg movement is explicit whilst his treatment of hands and arms of the figures in the Uffizzi drawing of The Ordination of the Deacons underline his concern for the best way to depict motion.
Together with our striking drawing of A Caryatid, all three compositions adopt the same physiognomy, psychology and specific mode of expression as well as use of fictitious architecture in order to emphasize movement. All show many elements of similarity in the treatment of the line, in the depiction of elegance, in the importance given to light and shade, and in their expression of power and movement through various gestures with energy and spontaneity. Together with a powerful sense of relief, all are characteristic of the graphic work of the artist and interestingly, the design of the grotesque figure of the Caryatid is even closer to the all’ antica style than the British Museum sheet. Although it has not been possible to connect the drawing to a known work, the purpose of this kind of grotesque figure could be its use in a frieze possibly encasing a coat of arms, or placed on either side of a curved central niche , or on the painted façade of a palace, or as mural decoration .
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