Francisco Rizi

José Maria de Vera, Seville, 'The Spanish Album', before 1872;
Madame Scheu, Paris,
possibly, sale, Paris, Hotel Drouot, 11 August 1963;
with E. Shapiro, London and Paris;
with Adolf Stein, Galerie Sigismondi, Paris, 1991 (Dessins Espagnols, no. 59)

J. Brown, 'Selected Drawings of Spanish Baroque Masters', Master Drawings, vol. XXI, no. 4 (1983), p. 405, no. 12, pl. 32;
E. Lamas-Delgado, 'Sebastian Muñoz, Ruiz de la Iglesia y Francisco Rizi:  Un Nuevo ejemplo de la circulación de modelos en la pintura de la segunda mitad del siglo XVII en Madrid,' in Archivo Español de arte 86, 2013, no. 344, pp. 356-362, fig. 3

Laid down. There are a number of areas where the sheet has been made up by a different hand: Top of the arch, the lower left and right corners, the left and right margins and a fairly large area, lower centre. There are other noticeable tears and creases in the sheet. Despite being quite damaged the medium has remained strong and vibrant and the overall image is still readable and impressive. Sold framed.
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Brown (see Literature) suggests this may have been a presentation drawing due to its size and high degree of finish.  However, no surviving painting of this subject is known.  Brown does cite a reference in Palomino (ed. 1947) where a painting of Saint Andrew is mentioned, 'del Apóstol San Andrés del collateral de la Epístola en la parroquial de San Salvador,' but he concludes that it is too obscure to make any plausible connection.¹  This sheet is stylistically comparable to a drawing by Rizi in the British Museum, datable to the middle of the 17th century, which represents the Virgin as an expectant mother, revealing the infant Christ within her womb to Simón de Rojas.²  Both drawings share the same exuberant and elaborate way of describing the draperies in pen and ink, strengthened by the point of the brush and brown wash.

Eduardo Lamas-Delgado (see literature) notes the close relationship between our drawing and a painted altarpiece of the same subject, by the Madrid artist, Francisco Ignacio Ruiz de la Iglesia, executed in 1696 for the parish church in the village of Casarrubios del Monte.  Although Ruiz's painting is in reverse, it shares many compositional elements with Rizi's study, suggesting that Ruiz may have had access to Rizi's modello. The article also discusses the circulation of modelli in Madrid in the second half of the 17th century, highlighting the collaboration between artists and the exchange of ideas through preparatory drawings.

¹ J. Brown, op.cit., p. 405
² Inv. no. 1895,0915.878