Antonio Campi Cremona 1524 - 1587

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Description

Antonio Campi
recto: four studies for a demi-lunette with a sibyl and prophet, and a separate study of a prophetverso: study of a seated male nude and standing nude figure
inscribed, verso: puo/duo
pen and brown ink (recto and verso)

Provenance

Dr Richard Mead (according to inscription on the back of the mount);
Jonathan Richardson, Senior, his mount with shelf number: L.201/LL.46 (L.2984);
Sale, London, Christie's, 10 July 1973, lot 184 (as Giulio Campi);
Ratjen Foundation, Vaduz

Exhibited

Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, et al., Stiftung Ratjen, Italienische Zeichnungen des 16.-18. Jahrhunderts, 1978, no. 12 (entry by Matthias Winner);
Cremona, I Campi e la cultura artistica cremonese del Cinquecento, 1985, p. 305, no. 2.13.5.

Literature

L. Fröhlich-Bume, 'Verkaufsausstellung von Handzeichnungen alter Meister vom 15.5 bis 1.6.1967', Die Weltkunst, no. 37, 1967, p. 465, fig. 2 (as Parmigianino);
G. Bora, I disegni lombardi e genovesi dal Cinquecento, Treviso 1980, p. 45

Catalogue Note

Bora was the first to attribute this sheet of studies to Antonio Campi. It was previously attributed to Parmigianino by Frölich-Bume (see Literature) and subsequently sold as Giulio Campi (see Provenance). The attribution to Antonio was accepted in the 1977 Ratjen Collection exhibition catalogue (see Exhibited), where Matthias Winner pointed out the debt to Parmigianino's style, and also that the lunette study at the top centre of this sheet can be related to the figure of Jonah in the Sistine Chapel. Subsequently Bora, although acknowledging the influence of Michelangelo, pointed out that Antonio in fact based this figure on the Prophet frescoed by Giulio Campi in 1542 in a lunette in the transept of the church of S. Sigismondo, in Cremona (see Bora's entry on the present drawing in the 1985 Campi exhibition catalogue, op.cit.).

Bora also proposed stylistic similarities with two other studies: one in the Musei Civici del Castello Sforzesco, Milan (see G. Bora, op.cit., no. 49) and the other in the Accademia, Venice. The latter is a preparatory study for The Conversion of Saint Paul, a fresco executed by Antonio Campi in the church of San Paolo in Milan in 1654 (see U. Ruggeri, Disegni Lombardi, Milan 1982, no. 40). Bora suggests that it is possible that the present studies are related to Campi's decoration for the choir of the Duomo of Lodi (now destroyed), where the artist worked between 1568 and 1570.