Italian School

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Italian School

15th century

Man of Sorrows. Verso: Fragment of a Battle-Scene: Soldiers, One with a Banner, and Head of a Horse

Pen and brown ink and wash, with small amounts of ochre, red, and brown-black tempera and gold on linen, silhouetted; lined with cloth and laid down on another drawing. Verso of paper: pen and brown ink, gray wash.

3 9/16 x 3 1/6 inches (180 x 136 mm; paper); 3 5/8 x 3 inches (91 x 77 mm; maximum dimensions; cloth).

Gift of Janos Scholz.

1981.78

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Description:

Early, small-scale linen works such as this are quite rare, which has resulted in diverse interpretations of the present example for which direct comparisons are elusive. While in the collection of Janos Scholz, it was exhibited and published several times as by Lorenzo Monaco, an attribution proposed by Max J. Friedländer and Hans Tietze (according to a note in Janos Scholz’s files). More recently, Catherine Puglisi and William Barcham assigned it to a northern Italian artist roughly contemporary with Lorenzo Monaco.¹ On the other hand, Creighton Gilbert suggested the work may not be Italian, believing instead that it is closer to late fourteenth-century French liturgical objects drawn on cloth (unpublished letter to Morgan curators, 1957).

Footnotes:

New York 2011, 40, no. 4.

Notes:

Verso of mount: fragment of battle scene, in pen and brown ink, gray wash.
Formerly attributed to Lorenzo Monaco by Max Friedländer and Hans Tietze. Has been compared to a painting by Monaco in Bergamo.
Watermark: none.

Provenance:

Oscar Stoessel, Vienna and New York (according to Scholz records); Hanns Schaeffer Galleries, New York [sale confirmed by March 8 letter to Paul Grigaut in Scholz Detroit 1960 correspondance file], from whom purchased in 1948 (?) by János Scholz (1903-1993), New York (see Lugt Suppl. 2933b).

Associated names:

Lorenzo, Monaco, 1370 or 1371-1425, Formerly attributed to.
Stoessel, Otto, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.

Bibliography:

Selected references: Detroit 1960, 11, no. 2 (as Lorenzo Monaco); Oakland and Berkeley 1961, no. 51 (as Lorenzo Monaco); Baltimore 1962, 23, no. 23 (as Lorenzo Monaco); Hamburg and Cologne 1963-64, no. 97 (as Lorenzo Monaco); Los Angeles and elsewhere 1967-68, no. 37 (as Lorenzo Monaco); London and elsewhere 1968, no. 61 (as Lorenzo Monaco); New York 1971, no. 57 (as Lorenzo Monaco); Scholz 1976, no. 3 (as Lorenzo Monaco); Notre Dame 1980, 141, no. 130 (as Lorenzo Monaco); Fellows Report 1984, 278-79 (as Lorenzo Monaco); New York 2011 (as anonymous northern Italian artist).
Italienische Meisterzeichnungen vom 14. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert aus amerikanischem Besitz : Die Sammlung Janos Scholz, New York. Hamburg : H. Christians, 1963, no. 97, repr.
Tuscan and Venetian Drawings of the Quattrocento from the Collection of János Scholz. Los Angeles : Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1967, no. 37, repr.
Italian Drawings from the Collection of János Scholz. London : Art Council Gallery, 1968, no. 61.
One Hundred Italian Drawings from the 14th to the 18th Centuries from the János Scholz Collection. New York : New School Art Center, 1971, no. 56.
Scholz, Janos. Italian Master Drawings, 1350-1800, from the János Scholz Collection. New York : Dover, 1976, no. 3, repr.
Scholz, Janos, and Dean A. Porter. János Scholz, Musician and Collector. Notre Dame : Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, 1980, no. 130, repr.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twentieth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981-1983. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, p. 278-279.

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