This is the only known preparatory study for the three illustrations Natoire designed for the "De Vita et Rebus Gestis Clementis Undecimi Pontifici Maximi", a biography of Pope Clement XI (1649-1721) published by Pietro Polidori in 1727 (Urbino, Antonium Fantauzzi). The project engaged both French and Italian artists including Pier Leone Ghezzi, Giovanni Battista Brughi, and Michel Francois Dandre-Bardon. Pietro Masini engraved Natoire's scene for the frontispiece to the third book. The seated pope eagerly browses tomes from the celebrated library of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), secretary to Cardinal Francesco Barberini and nephew of Pope Urban VIII. The young Dal Pozzo is shown here kneeling next to a crate and proffering a book to the pope, while in the related illustration he is shown as an older, bearded figure.
Signed in pen and black ink, at lower left, "C. NATOIRE. F."; inscribed on verso, in graphite, at upper right, "100".
Watermark: Fleur-de-lis in circle surmounted by letter "V".
Ferretti, Roberto, former owner.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twenty-First Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984-1986. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1989, p. 364.
Caviglia-Brunel, Susanna, Charles-Joseph Natoire, 1700-1777, Paris, 2012, no. D.78.