Lot 36
  • 36

Pietro Novelli, called Il Monrealese Monreale 1603 - 1647 Palermo

Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 USD
Log in to view results
bidding is closed

Description

  • Pietro Novelli, called Il Monrealese
  • the virgin, surrounded by saints, crowning st. claire
  • bears attribution and inscription: Pietro Novelli il Monrealese and S. Chiara, and numbered in another hand: 21
  • pen and brown ink and wash, over traces of black chalk; indented

Provenance

Sale, Munich, Karl und Faber, 7-8 December 1956, lot 114; 
Walter Vitzthum;
Herbert List (bears his collector's dry stamp, not in Lugt);
Wolfgang Ratjen, Vaduz

Exhibited

Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Zeichnungen alter Meister aus deutschem Privatbesitz, 1965, no. 27, pl. 97 (catalogue by W. Stubbe, W. Deusch and R. Kultzen);
Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, et al., Stiftung Ratjen, Italienische Zeichnungen des 16.-18. Jahrhunderts, 1977-78, no. 63 (entry by Dieter Graf);
Naples, Civiltà del Seicento a Napoli, 1984, vol. 2, cat. no. 3.52 (entry by Julien Stock)

Literature

Catherine Monbeig-Goguel and Walter Vitzthum, Le Dessin a Naples du XVIe au XVIIIe Siècle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1967, p. 26, under no. 51
David McTavish, Italian Drawings from the Collection of Duke Roberto Ferretti, exhibition catalogue, Toronto, Royal Gallery of Ontario and New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, 1985-86, p. 86, under no. 37;
Guido di Stefano, Pietro Novelli, Il Monrealese, Palermo 1989, p. 280, no. 124, reproduced

Catalogue Note

This is a preliminary study for Novelli's fresco on the ceiling of Sta. Maria di Monte Oliveto (the Badia Nuova), Palermo, painted in 1633-34 (fig.1).  The ceiling was decorated with frescoes of the Ascension of Christ and stories from the lives of Franciscan Saints. The shape of the fresco differs somewhat from that indicated in this drawing (see di Stefano, op. cit., p. 205, no. 27.5, reproduced).