Attributed to Leone Leoni

The portrait studies on both sides of the sheet depict the admiral and Genoese ruler Andrea Doria (1466-1560), whose name is inscribed on the recto. The recto also contains three sketches recording the motif of the Dioscuri, or Horse Tamers, two well-known antique sculpture groups in the Piazza del Quirinale, Rome. The verso features a red chalk sketch of a centaur and an offset of the Medici coat of arms framed by a diamond ring. Because the topmost study on the recto is enclosed in a circle, and because the drawn features resemble Leone Leoni’s portrait medals of Andrea Doria, the sheet is usually ascribed to Leoni in the published literature.

Leoni was employed at the papal mint from 1537 until 1540, when he attacked Pellegrino da Leuti, the papal goldsmith, with a knife and Pope Paul III condemned him to the galleys. A year later, he was liberated through Andrea Doria’s intervention and, presumably as an expression of his gratitude, produced two versions of a portrait medal featuring Doria.¹ During the same period, ca. 1541-42, Leoni also produced three bronze plaquettes featuring Andrea Doria and his adopted son and successor, Gianettino.² Few drawings can be assigned to Leoni, none with confidence. Based on a connection with Leoni’s tomb for Giovanni Jacopo de’ Medici in Milan Cathedral, three sheets, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, have been attributed to Leoni or a member of his workshop, though their style is dissimilar to the Morgan studies.³ In the absence of secure comparative material, the attribution to Leoni must rest on the similarity between the drawn and cast portraits, and, though plausibly related, these differ in their depictions of the ruler. The cast portraits show a younger Doria with more aquiline features – differences that could have been intended to glorify the ruler, who would have been seventy-five when Leoni's medals were created.

Another portrait medal featuring Andrea Doria has been attributed to the German painter and medalist Christoph Weiditz by Paul Grotemeyer – a proposal which has gained some acceptance and served as the basis for attributing the present sheet to Weiditz.⁴ As Grotemeyer noted, Weiditz is known to have visited Genoa and, while in Barcelona in 1528, met Andrea Doria and sketched his portrait in his Trachtenbuch.⁵ However, the watercolor depiction of Doria in the manuscript version of his Trachtenbuch in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, differs so markedly from the present sheet as to rule out Weiditz on stylistic grounds.⁶

On the other hand, Bernice Davidson attributed the present drawing to Perino del Vaga (unpublished opinion recorded in the curatorial file, 1964 or earlier), a conclusion to which Walter Cupperi seems to have arrived independently.⁷ Perino too worked in Genoa in the service of Andrea Doria ca. 1528-38, before migrating to Rome to carry out projects for the Farnese family and Pope Paul III. As Felice Stampfle and Jacob Bean pointed out, without a categorical confirmation or rejection of the attribution to Leoni, an attribution to Perino, or another artist working in Genoa for Andrea Doria, cannot be ruled out.⁸

Indeed, the present drawing is closely related in content and style to Perino’s sheet of studies, now in Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest.⁹ The Budapest sheet contains sketches of a profile bust of Pope Paul III, which shares the format and the searching, repetitive pen lines of the pres ent Doria portrait drawings. The Budapest recto also contains a pen-and-ink sketch of a battling centaur that is very similar to the quick study in red chalk of the same subject on the Morgan verso. This Budapest drawing accords well with others in the artist’s accepted corpus. Take, for instance, the verso of a related sheet in the British Museum.¹⁰ The Budapest Neptune and standing figure with his arm raised (possibly Apollo) are directly comparable to a corresponding Bacchus on the London sheet. Similarly, the battling cavalrymen and horse at lower right of the British Museum study are delineated in the same flowing and energetic manner as the Budapest centaur. The Budapest verso contains a letter sent to Perino, dated 19 November 1539, thereby establishing a post quem for the recto drawings. The letter mentions a “M^a caterina vostra”, which likely refers to Perino’s wife, Caterina Penni.¹¹

Elena Parma saw a connection between the Budapest portrait study and the busts of Paul III sculpted by Guglielmo della Porta and suggested that the sculptor may have followed Perino’s drawing.¹² Christina Riebesell, on the other hand, thought this proposal unlikely given Guglielmo’s reputation as a portraitist. Instead, she suggested that Perino may have copied the sculpted portrait or, alternatively, that Guglielmo was the draftsman responsible for the Budapest studies.¹³ Susanna Zanuso accepted these hypotheses and took them further to include the Morgan sheet.¹⁴ However, both the Budapest and Morgan drawings lack the distinctive handling that characterizes Guglielmo’s draftsmanship. The Budapest drawing fits comfortably in Perino’s corpus, and the papal portrait study can be placed within the years during which the artist was in Paul III’s employ. Moreover, Leoni entered the Pope’s service in 1537 and himself modeled medals with papal portraits, dated ca. 1538-39.¹⁵ Preparation for or reference to a sculpted portrait of Paul III does not, therefore, preclude Leoni’s involvement, and – like the Morgan study – the Budapest drawing may have an as yet unexplained connection to the sculptor.

The case remains unclear. An attribution of the present sheet to Perino better explains the counterproof featuring the Medici palle on the verso. As this study seems to have been transferred from another sheet while the ink was still wet, the other drawing must date from the same moment as the Morgan drawing. The Milanese Leoni is not known to have worked for the Medici, and the reference suggests a Florentine artist active in Tuscany where the device was ubiquitous. In addition to Perino’s Florentine roots, it is worth noting that his work in Genoa was interrupted by a temporary move to Pisa, ca. 1534-36 and by a return to the Tuscan city in 1538.¹⁶ On the other hand, such circumstantial details are far from conclusive, and, despite the relationship between the present studies and Perino’s drawing in Budapest, some elements remain unexplained. Notably, the studies on the lower right-hand side of the Morgan recto, that is, the incomplete profile of Andrea Doria and the three Horse Tamers, are weaker in handling and conception than Perino’s accepted drawings.

The Morgan sheet is related to Perino’s activity and draftsmanship but cannot be confidently assigned to him. The attribution to Leoni is similarly plausible, if inconclusive. As a result, there remain further questions concerning function. The Morgan studies seem to relate to portrait medals, but it is not known if they are preparatory or derivative. The discrepancies between the Morgan drawings and the castings are similarly unexplained. In three of the four studies on the Morgan sheet, the draftsman sketched both the underlying contour of Doria’s head and a triangular hat. It could be that he was converting Leoni’s portrait to include the hat featured in a number of painted portraits of the ruler, including that by Sebastiano del Piombo, ca. 1526.¹⁷ On the other hand, the conversion may be reversed: it is possible that the idealized medals were informed by the more naturalistic drawings.

Footnotes:

1. Pollard and Luciano 2007, 1: 490-91, nos. 489, 490. The profile portraits of the two versions are virtually identical except that one includes collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. One reverse features Leoni’s self-portrait encircled by chains with a shackle lock and a galley in the distance. The other reverse (found opposite the portrait including the collar), depicts a galley, away from which a small boat with two oarsmen is rowing.
2. Two of these survive at the British Museum, London: Andrea Doria flanked by Peace and Fame (inv. 1927-711-1) and Gianettino Doria offering a sacrifice (inv. 2005-12-2-1). The third – Gianettino Doria in sea chariot with Andrea Doria in the guise of Neptune – is known from multiple aftercast versions. See Thornton 2006, 828, note 7.
3. Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv. 6660, 6663, 617; Ward-Jackson 1979, 82-84, no. 184, 185
4. Grotemeyer 1958, 317-27; Schädler, 1987, 161; Weber, in Washington, New York and elsewhere 1994, 224, under no. 90; Warren 2004, 33-34.
5. Grotemeyer 1958, 321; Warren 2004, 33.
6. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg, Ms. 22474, 83-84.
7. Zanuso, in Madrid 2012, 17, note 20, records that Cupperi proposed an attribution of the Morgan drawing to Perino in his unpublished conference paper “Leone Leoni as a portraitist: problems in authorship” (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 3 July 2009).
8. Washington, New York and elsewhere 1965-66, 63.
9. Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, inv. 2006.
10. British Museum, London, inv. 1946-7-13-564.
11. Mantua 2001, 290, no. 159.
12. Mantua 2001, 290, no. 159.Guglielmo’s busts are conserved in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; and the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. The former (bronze) is dated ca. 1544, the latter (marble) ca. 1546.
13. Genoa 2004, 69.
14. Madrid 2012, 13-14.
15. Madrid 2012, 11. For a different portrait, whose occasion is unknown, see Pollard and Luciano 2007, 489, no. 488.
16. Popham 1945, 85-90.
17. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome, inv. 92276.