Attributed to Alessandro Allori Florence 1535 - 1607

This very finished and delicately drawn study of a horse is inspired by the antique.  The classical pose of the horse is close in type and posture to those accompanying the colossal statues of the Dioscuri in the Piazza del Quirinale, Rome.  From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and later, artists studied these sculptures in their topographical surroundings, drawing them singly and as a pair, and made separate detail studies of their dynamic anatomy.  Their fame was spread far beyond Rome through copies in bronze or marble and through engravings and painted views.  

According to Borghini, Alessandro Allori spent two years in Rome and he is documented there with his brother, Bastiano, on 21 February 1559.  He returned to Florence in 1560 to execute important commissions, having enriched his artistic experience beyond his training with Agnolo Bronzino.  What is detectable from the subtle execution of this drawing is not only the impact of knowledge of the work of Michelangelo and Raphael in Rome, but also of artists such as Daniele da Volterra, whose graphic style is not far from this sheet, and Jacopino del Conte.  The drawing does, however, also still strongly reflect the luminosity and perfection in execution of Allori's master Bronzino.  Being inspired by a sculpture, it is less spontaneous and individual than other studies by the artist, but the rendering of the hair in the horse's tail is particularly close to the way he sometimes draws and paints a woman's hair:  for examples of this see Simona Lecchini Giovannoni, Alessandro Allori, Turin 1991, figs.346 and 381, and also two drawings formerly in the collections of Lord Clark of Saltwood (sold, London, Sotheby's, 5 July 1984, lot 169) and Sir Robert Mond (see T. Borenius and R. Wittkower, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings by the Old Masters fomed by Sir Robert Mond, pl.XXXV, as Daniele da Volterra).  This study of a horse has been also associated with the work of Giorgio Vasari.