Old Master and British Works on Paper

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 201. Two landscape drawings: A) A rocky outcrop with trees, with an additional sketch (verso) B) Farm buildings in a landscape.

Gherardo Cibo

Two landscape drawings: A) A rocky outcrop with trees, with an additional sketch (verso) B) Farm buildings in a landscape

Lot Closed

January 25, 07:02 PM GMT

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Gherardo Cibo

Geona 1512 - 1600 Rocca Contrada

Two landscape drawings:

A) A rocky outcrop with trees, with an additional sketch (verso)

B) Farm buildings in a landscape

Both pen and brown ink;

A) inscribed in brown ink along the upper edge: scoglio sotto sto Angelo, qu(ello) se vi alla romita allongo, ricavato d(i). li. 16. d(i) giugno. 1567.

B) inscribed in brown ink along the upper edge: casa gia d(i) Gioso sotto la romita Sto Gir(oni)mo R(icarate) dal suo boschetto d(i). 30 d(i) maggio. 1567.

A)150 by 215 mm; 5⅞ by 8½ in.

B)155 by 220 mm; 6⅛ by 8⅝ in.

Paul Cassirer, Amsterdam, by 1962;
Curtis O. Baer Collection, Atlanta, his collectors mark on B), verso (L.3366)

Atlanta, High Museum of Art, et al, Master Drawings from Titian to Picasso: The Curtis O. Baer Collection, (catalogue by Eric M. Zafran) 1985, nos. 8a and 8b (as Ulisse Severino da Cingoli, called Messer Ulisse)

J. Bolten, 'Messer Ulisse Severino da Cingoli, a Bypath in the History of Art', Master Drawings, vol. VII, no. 2 (1969), p. 142, nos. 111 and 112

Both of these delightful sheets are very characteristic examples of Gherardo Cibo's charming drawings from nature, and, in all probability, once formed part of a larger sketchbook.

At the time of the exhibition in San Severino Marche (see footnote 1), Arnold Nesselrath identified the so-called Messer Ulisse as Gherardo Cibo and told the story of his life. Born in 1512 into an important and influential Genoese aristocratic family, he decided to abandon an ecclesiastical career to pursue his interests as a musician and botanist far from the papal court. Cibo spent his long life in the Marche, in Rocca Contrada, where he had lived with his family in his childhood. He died there in 1600.¹

1. See Arnold Nesselrath, 'Gherardo Cibo: 'qui non è cognito', in Gherardo Cibo, exhibition catalogue, Comune di San Severino Marche, 1989, pp. 5-16