One of a group of drawings by the same hand, once part of the Casare da Sesto album, but not by him.1 The sheets contain several studies for wall and ceiling decorations, particularly grotesques. The sketches appear to be aide-mémoires, which are labeled with their city of origin (Florence, Rome, Genoa, Cremona, and Trent). The present sheet is labeled “Genua” and suggests that the draftsman observed the example of Perino del Vaga and his circle, who, from 1528 to 1538, decorated the palazzo of the admiral and Genoese ruler Andrea Doria (1466-1560). For instance, on the verso of the Morgan sheet, the draftsman sketched two versions of an Artemis Polymastia. Similar depictions can be found throughout the Palazzo Doria decorations, showing her with her arms outstretched, surmounted by a small building and, in the study on the left, with various creatures at her feet.
Footnotes:
- Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. II 26a, 28a, 29a.
Watermark: hand/glove with circle inside.
One of thirty four sixteenth-century Italian drawings formerly mounted in a nineteenth-century album, the Cesare da Sesto Album.
Inscribed at upper left, above fish, in pen and brown ink, "spata piscis"; beneath fish, "Barcinona"; at upper right, "genua (?)"; between dancing women, "[... fuit dinanzi gco / ... ludatia ist / saltatntin st / gozgo]"; to right of trophy, "trophia qu/ [per passa / vasianz]; groo (?); blau; invaznat(?); [rool; istipur ino / ginto oblong]"; on verso at lower right, "Genua"; and variously, "azur; groo; 44; H; R [or K]; I".
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Morgan, J. P. (John Pierpont), 1867-1943, former owner.