Lelio Orsi

The Swedish Consul, Dr. Johan Jacob Ekmans (died in 1949), Wäija, Västernorrland (his printed label on the backing sheet),

thence by descent;

sale, Stockholm, Bukowskis, 15 June 2011, lot 454 A;

with Jean-Luc Baroni, London

Powerfully influenced by Correggio, this rare representation of one of the loves of Jupiter, shown here in the form of an eagle embracing the nymph Aegina, demonstrates the great popularity that classical references and themes of this type enjoyed with the sophisticated audiences of early and mid-16th century Italy. As David Ekserdjian observed, when writing on Correggio's Loves of Jupiter, this was the moment when these sensual subjects were depicted for the first time with such overt intimacy, giving artists an opportunity ‘to explore emotional responses not previously approached by painting since antiquity.'¹ These emotions are very clearly expressed by Lelio Orsi in the present drawing.

It is impossible not to relate this composition to Correggio's painting of Jupiter and Io (circa 1530), part of the artist’s series of the Loves of Jupiter, commissioned by Federico Gonzaga, probably with the intention that it be given to Charles V, and now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.² Yet while Correggio fills the space around Io with thick smoke in order to conceal Jupiter's adultery, Lelio Orsi’s representation of Jupiter transformed into an eagle while embracing the nymph Aegina is almost realistic.

Stylistically, this sheet is closely reminiscent of Orsi's Rape of Ganymede (Modena, Galleria Estense), an octagonal fresco fragment from a ceiling decoration, formerly in the Rocca of Novellara and previously considered to be the work of Correggio.³ The Rape of Ganymede is generally dated to the late 1540s,4 a dating that also seems plausible for the present drawing. This is a period in Orsi's career when Correggio's influence is clearly paramount in his work, which lacks the intense Michelangelism of the artist's later productions. Orsi was not the only artist to follow Correggio's sensual and modern representation of such erotic subjects, and he would have been well aware of the works of Francesco Primaticcio (1503-1570) and Niccolò dell'Abbate (1509/1512-1571), as well as those by Giulio Romano (1499-1546).

The drawing is squared in black chalk, and could therefore have been used for a painting or a fresco, presumably one located within a niche, given the arched top also suggested by the background wash. Drawn with refinement and delicacy in pen and ink, the sheet is suffused with a soft luminosity, conveyed with different shades of brown wash. These are applied with a variety of fluid strokes and smaller touches to achieve the maximum contrast of light. The wash intensifies the volumes of the body of Aegina and the Eagle, confined as they are in the narrow space of the niche. The eccentricity of this representation and its execution are very typical of Lelio Orsi's originality. Aegina was the daughter of the river-god Asopus in the land of Sicyonia. Jupiter fell in love with her and transported the nymph to the island of Oenone, where she gave birth to their son, Aeacus.

Orsi was born and died in Novellara, a small city which lies between Bologna and Parma, and remained mostly in hishome town, where he worked principally on secular decorations for the façades and the interiors of private palaces. Histravels were limited, possibly thanks to his entanglement in the murder of Gian Paolo Bojardo, but he is documented inVenice and spent time in Rome.

1. David Ekserdjian, Correggio, New Haven and London 1997, p. 282
2. Vienna, Kunstistorisches Museum, inv. no. GG-274
3. Modena, Galleria Estense, inv. no. 51
4. Reggio Emilia, Teatro Valli, Lelio Orsi 1511-1587, exhib. cat., 1987-1988, pp. 80-81, cat. 36, reproduced