Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione called Il Grechetto

Upper cover creased and soiled and a little tear to the right margin with small losses. Another small tear on the center of the lower cover and on the spina. The first page slightly soiled around the edges and especially bottom corner. Overall the album is in quite good condition, with the original binding. The pages are well preserved, occasionally with some little light stains. The text block is very slightly cockled. The album was sold as a blank book and each leaf is ruled to form the writing area.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This newly discovered and fascinating album seems to be the only known example of a sketchbook which has survived within Castiglione’s corpus of drawings.  It constitutes a vital link for a better understanding of the young artist's learning and working method, providing a unique insight into his interests as a young painter, and into the influences that the dynamic Roman artistic world had on his development.  As so little is known of the artist’s early career, this most informative discovery is highly revealing of the stimulating artistic and cultural world of Rome, under the papacy of Urban VIII, Barberini (1623-1644), a highly exciting but equally competitive milieu into which the young Castiglione took his first steps as an artist.

Castiglione moved to Rome when he was about twenty years old, after his first formation in the bottega of Giovanni Battista Paggi (1554-1627), in his native city of Genoa.¹ The artist is documented in Rome by Easter 1632, when his name is recorded in the ‘stati delle anime’ of the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte.  He must have arrived slightly earlier, perhaps after the death the previous year of Sinibaldo Scorza who, as Mariette noted, had been an important influence on the young Castiglione, while also working as an assistant in Paggi’s workshop.  Scorza, a specialist in the painting of animals, must have been responsible for developing the artist’s interest in pastoral scenes and naturalistic landscapes animated by a variety of creatures.  Another primary influence while still in Genoa must have been the biblical-pastoral subjects painted by the Bassano family, which the young Castiglione must have seen not only in many Genoese aristocratic collections, but also in Paggi’s studio, where his mentor used his substantial collections of paintings, prints and books for the instruction and stimulation of his pupils – his house and studio effectively an ‘Academy of Art’.  Also important was the presence of Flemish artists and their paintings in Genoa, among them Jan Roos (1591-1638), a figure of great significance for Castiglione.  As pointed out by Blunt, Roos brought to the city ‘a type of composition dominated by animals on a large scale, treated in a baroque manner, as opposed to the minute creatures with which Scorza built up his late Mannerist designs.’²   The assimilation of Northern elements would prove invigorating for the young artist, and would remain a strong basis for his later evolution, even after he was exposed to the unlimited variety of the Roman artistic and classical example.  As we can clearly appreciate from the many drawings in this album, Castiglione is a skilful and vital draftsman, very capable of representing all type of subjects.

The original binding bears two highly relevant inscriptions: on the lower cover, inscribed in pen and ink, though now only just legible, is Castiglione’s name, followed by Genuenses, while in the top corner of the front cover, a later hand has written, in blue chalk, ‘Carracci’. 

The link to Annibale’s work, and especially to the fresco decorations of Palazzo Farnese, commissioned from Annibale and Agostino by the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese at the end of the sixteenth century, is immediately evident.  Closer study of the album reveals, though, that the drawings are not copying the actual frescoes or painted works by the Carracci, but are instead after drawings formerly in the famous Roman collection of Francesco Angeloni (1587-1652), demonstrating that Castiglione was acquainted with the cultural, artistic and antiquarian circle that surrounded the collector.

Angeloni, secretary to Ippolito Aldobrandini, was a scholar, writer and famous collector, one of the most important antiquarian figures of the early Seicento in Rome.  His house and museum, the so-called Museo Angelonio, were located in Via Orsini.  His remarkable collection of drawings included perhaps the majority of Annibale’s known works, about six hundred sheets, many related to the Farnese Gallery, which seem to have been contained in two folio volumes.  How Angeloni acquired this great mass of drawings is not known, but it may have been directly from Annibale shortly before his death, possibly via Antonio Carracci, as the drawings in question did not appear in the inventory of Annibale’s possessions drawn up two days after he died.³ Angeloni also owned a quantity of landscape drawings by Annibale, Agostino and Domenichino.  He left his collection to Giovanni Pietro Bellori (probably his illegitimate son), but it was actually dispersed by his family, who were permitted to put it up for sale, having successfully contested Angeloni’s will.  At the sale, the French artist Pierre Mignard bought a substantial number of the drawings, the majority of which are now in France.⁴  Prior to its dispersal, Angeloni’s collection was one of the most important in Europe, containing paintings by Giorgione, Titian and Veronese and also a small and rare self-portrait by Annibale Carracci.  It was famous enough to be on the itinerary of foreigners visiting Rome and Richard Symonds, an English traveller and a painter, who was in Rome from 1649 to the spring of 1651, provided a detailed description (in a manuscript now in the British Library) of the paintings and drawings that he saw there, noting that the museum was designed as a Wunderkammer, with objects displayed in a dense hang.  The Museum was in the ground floor of the house, while the library was in the piano nobile.  Charles Errard, founding director of the French Academy, was also attracted by the fantastic group of Annibale’s drawings, and copied them in Angeloni’s house, as did François Bourlier, a pupil of Perrier, who was in Rome between 1642 and 1644.⁵  Angeloni’s illustrious associates included many leading cultural figures of the time, such as Cassiano dal Pozzo, Vincenzo Giustiniani, Giovanni Battista Agucchi, Domenichino and his pupil Giovanni Angelo Canini, as well as Nicolas Poussin and Giovan Pietro Bellori. 

The majority of the sheets in the album are partial or compositional studies, sometimes single figures, and a few landscapes.  While most of the sheets are executed with a delicate and fluent use of the pen and a golden brown ink, two sheets are in red chalk (folio 84 verso, and folio 85 recto), and a slight sketch of a dog, probably after a sculpture, in black chalk (folio 9 recto).  Sometimes the drawings are embellished by the use of a delicate wash, although the majority appear to be quick annotations of compositions which captured Castiglione’s imagination, and surely provided him with long-lasting inspiration.  Though he was only in his twenties when he made these drawings, Castiglione’s pen and ink style is already very assured and distinctive, and even though he is copying, he expresses the same vivacity of execution so characteristic of his later style.  Only two drawings (folio 10 recto and folio 16 recto) seem not to be by the artist, and perhaps the study of a dog, after sculpture (folio 9 recto).

At the time of going to press Miriam Di Penta informed us that she independently reached a similar conclusion regarding this album, and that she will publish her findings in a forthcoming article in Nuovi Studi: ‘Annibale Carracci come modello per gli artisti del Seicento: un album di disegni di Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione’. 

The following is a list of the drawings in the album for which we have been able to identify the prototypes. We have also noted when the Angeloni provenance of the prototype was not previously known.

folio 1, recto: After the entire composition of Annibale’s sheet, in pen and ink, now at Princeton: Study for the choice of Hercules: two standing women and a reclining male nude (inv. no. 2008.43); ⁶

folio 2, recto: After a figure of a dwarf in a pen and ink drawing by Agostino, now in the Louvre, Seated woman and a dwarf with a parrot (inv. no. 7301). The Angeloni provenance of that drawing not previously known;⁷

Unumbered folio, verso [following folio 23]: Copy of the recto of a sheet given to Annibale Carracci?, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: Two women attending a baby in a cradle (inv. no. 7137). The Louvre drawing is a fragment. Castiglione’s copy includes at the top two angels which could have formed part of the original composition;⁸

folio 24, recto: After the entire composition of a sheet given to the school of Annibale, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: A crowd throwing stones (inv. no. 7835);⁹

folio 29, recto: After the lower section of a sheet given to the school of Annibale, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: Jesus defeating Evil and King David and an Angel fighting a demon (inv. no. 7900);¹⁰

folio 32, recto: The two male figures sketched in the upper section are related to the same in a drawing from the Circle of Annibale, in pen and ink, on the art market in 2006 (current whereabouts unknown). The Angeloni provenance of that drawing not previously known;¹¹

folio 34, recto: After the entire composition of a sheet by Agostino Carracci, in pen and ink, The Holy Family, last seen in the Ellesmere sale in 1972 (current whereabouts unknown).  The Angeloni provenance of that drawing not previously known;¹²

folio 41, recto: After a putto in the foreground, and two groups of putti in the background, of a composition of Sleeping Venus, known from a copy after an unknown original by Annibale, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre (inv. no. 7571), see also folio 50; related to the famous painting by Annibale once in the Farnese collection, today at the Musée Condé, Chantilly. The Angeloni provenance of that drawing not previously known;¹³ 

folio 44, verso: Partly recording figures in a compositional sheet by Annibale, in pen and ink and grey wash, now in the Albertina: Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne (inv. 2144). This was no. 2 in the Crozat collection, formerly with Mignard (and therefore Angeloni), the provenance published in 1997 by C. Loisel;¹⁴

folio 46, recto: After Annibale’s drawing, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: Polyphemus (inv. no. 7196);¹⁵

folio 47, verso: A quick sketch of the recto of a sheet by Annibale, in black chalk heightened with white chalk, now in the Louvre: Ulysses and Mercury in front of Circe (inv. no. 7203);¹⁶

folio 48, recto: A quick sketch after the upper section of a sheet after Annibale, in red chalk, now in the Louvre: The Nativity of the Virgin (inv. no. 7537);¹⁷

folio 49, recto: A more finished study after the same sheet;¹⁸

folio 50, recto: After the figures of Venus and putti from a composition of Sleeping Venus, known from a copy after an unknown original by Annibale, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre (inv. no. 7571); see also folio 41. The Angeloni provenance of that drawing not previously known;¹⁹

folio 61, recto: After the recto of a sheet by Annibale, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: Christ on the Mount of Olives (inv. no. 7159);²⁰

folio 63, recto: After the figure of an Ignudo on the recto of Agostino's drawing, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: Study for a frieze decoration (inv. no. 7732); see also folio 77; ²¹

folio 71, verso: At the top of this sheet, Castiglione has copied a study of a bearded man in profile, on the verso of a Sheet of studies, in pen and ink, by Annibale, now in the Louvre (inv. no. 7170). The other study of a woman seems unrelated to the above drawing, although the sheet appears to be a fragment;²²

folio 73, recto: The lower section of this sheet seems to relate to a study by Annibale, in red chalk, now in the Metropolitan Museum: Anteros Victoriuos (inv. no. 62.120.2). The Angeloni provenance for that drawing was published in 1997 by C. Loisel;²³

folio 75, recto: The upper section of this sheet relates to a study by Annibale, in black chalk, now in the Louvre: Two cupids: Eros and Anteros (inv. no. 7305);²⁴

folio 76, recto: This seems to be after a study by Annibale, in coloured chalks heightened with pen and brown ink, Venus in clouds holding a mirror, sold London, Sothebys, 27 June 1974, lot 32. The Angeloni provenance of that drawing not previously known;

folio 77, recto: Partial record of the verso of a sheet by Agostino, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: The sacrifice of Iphigenia, (inv. no. 7732);²⁵

folio 78, recto: Partial study of the figure of Hercules from a drawing by Annibale, in black chalk heightened with white chalk, now in the Louvre: Hercules carrying the globe, and two astronomers (inv. no. 7205);²⁶

folio 79, recto: Three separate studies of the figure of Hercules, one possibly related to the same drawing as the previous folio, the study lower left closer to another drawing by Annibale, in black chalk heightened with white chalk, now in the Louvre: Hercules carrying the globe (inv. no. 7206);²⁷

folio 94, recto: After the verso of a sheet given to the Circle of Annibale, in pen and brown ink, now in the Louvre: A sheet of studies with a landscape and heads (inv. no. 7532);²⁸

folio 95, verso: The sketch to the right with a woman holding a child relates to a study by Agostino, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: Kneeling figure holding a child (inv. no. 7298). The Angeloni provenance of that drawing not previously known;²⁹

folio 96, recto: The composition of this sheet appears closely related to that of an anonymous, 17^th-century drawing, possibly after an original by Annibale, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: The lamentation over the body of Christ (inv. no. 9580). The Angeloni provenance for that drawing not previously known;³⁰

folio 98, verso: After Annibale’s drawing, in black chalk, now in the Louvre: Polyphemus and Galatea (inv. no. 7197);³¹

folio 100, recto: After Annibale’s drawing, in black chalk heightened with white, now in the Louvre: Study of standing a female (inv. no. 7307);³²  

folio 113, verso: A partial copy, with separate study of a caryatid, of a drawing by Agostino, in red chalk, now in the Louvre: Study for a tympanum (inv. no. 7425). The two putti at the bottom seem unrelated;³³ 

folio 116, recto: After the upper section of a drawing after Annibale, in pen and ink, now in the Louvre: St Francis praying, known from two versions (either inv.no. 7555 or inv. no. 7504). The Angeloni provenance not previously known.³⁴

^1. See the biographer R. Soprani, Le Vite de Pittori...Genovesi, Genoa 1674

^2. A. Blunt, The Drawings of G.B. Castiglione & Stefano della Bella, in the collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle, London 1954, p. 4 

^3. R. Zapperi, 'L'inventario di Annibale Carracci,' Antologia di Belle Arti, 1979, nos. 2-12, 1979, pp.62-67

^4. C. Loisel-Legrand, 'La collection de dessins italiens de Pierre Mignard,' in Pierre Mignard 'le Romain', Actes du colloque organize au muse du Louvre...le 29 septembre 1995, Paris 1997, pp. 55-88

^5. See respectively C. Engass, The Lives of Annibale & Agostino Carracci by Giovanni Pietro Bellori, London 1968, p. XIII; C. Loisel-Legrand, op. cit., p. 58

^6. L. Giles, L. Markey and C. Van Cleave, Italian Master Drawings, new Haven and London 2014, pp. 108-111, reproduced p. 109 (in colour)

^7. C. Loisel, Ludovico, Agostino, Annibale Carracci, Paris 2004, p. 177, no. 284, reproduced p. 176, fig. 284

^8. Ibid., p. 236, no. 495, reproduced fig. 495

^9. Ibid., pp. 270-71, no. 595, reproduced fig. 595

^10. Ibid., p. 274, no. 613, reproduced p. 275 fig. 613

^11. Sale, Milan, Sotheby's, 12 June 2006, lot 43 (as Cerchia di Annibale)

^12. Sale, London, Sotheby's, The Ellesmere Collection of Drawings by the Carracci and other Bolognese Masters, 11 July 1972, lot 31, reproduced (to Leggatt, Bros.)

^13.  C. Loisel, op. cit, p. 344, no. 913, reproduced fig. 913

^14. J.R. Martin, The Farnese Gallery, Princeton 1965, p. 253, no. 56, reproduced fig. 161; C. Loisel, op. cit., Paris 1997, p. 66, note 15 

^15. Ibid., p. 249, no. 528, reproduced p. 248, fig. 528

^16. Ibid., pp. 232,234, no. 485, reproduced fig. 485

^17. Ibid., p. 347, no. 923, reproduced fig. 923

^18. Loc. cit.

^19. C. Loisel, op. cit, p. 344, no. 913, reproduced fig. 913; for Annibale's Sleeping Venus see D. Posner, Annibale Carracci, London 1971, pp. 59-60, no. 134, reproduced fig. 134a

^20. C. Loisel, op. cit, p. 261, no. 565, reproduced fig. 565

^21. Ibid., p. 170, no. 269, reproduced fig. 269

^22. Ibid., p. 262, no. 567, reproduced fig. 567 verso

^23. J.R. Martin, op. cit., under note 14 above, p. 270, no. 125, reproduced fig. 240; C. Loisel, op. cit., Paris 1997, p. 65, note 12

^24. Ibid., p. 251, no. 534, reproduced fig. 534

^25. Ibid., p. 170, no. 269, reproduced fig. 269 verso

^26. Ibid., p. 230, no. 480, reproduced p.231, fig. 480

^27. Loc. cit., and ibid., p. 232, no. 482, reproduced p. 233, fig. 482

^28. Ibid., p. 272, no. 603, reproduced p. 273, fig. 603 verso

^29. Ibid., p. 180, no. 297, reproduced fig. 297

^30. Ibid., p. 337, no. 880, reproduced p. 336 fig. 880

^31. Ibid., p. 250, no. 530, reproduced fig. 530

^32. Ibid., pp. 262-263, no. 570, reproduced p. 263, fig. 570

^33. Ibid., p. 177, no. 288, reproduced fig. 288

^34. Ibid., p. 343, nos. 905-906, reproduced figs. 905-906