Attributed to Pier Leone Ghezzi Rome 1674 - 1755

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Description

Pier Leone Ghezzi
double caricature of ghezzi and the engraver osterreich
A long inscription by the artist below:
Osterreich:
mancato avea la provida natura/d'alcuni ritoccar l'aspetto umano/perch sapeva che la sua fattura/saria finita da una esperta mano/ond'io, che vidi la suo gran' disegno/m'accinsi d'intagliaro al grave impegno
Ghezzi:
che a me sia grata questa tua fatica/quanto esser... cosa rara e bella/vuó destina segno colla mano amica/per far palese tua virtú novella/accio che in un baleno ognun rintracca/la vera imago de le nostre facce.
pen and brown ink

Exhibited

London, P.& D. Colnaghi & Co, Old Master Drawings, 1985, cat. no. 36, reproduced;
Hamburg Kunsthalle (deaccessioned)

Catalogue Note

According to the witty rhyming dialogue inscribed at the bottom of the sheet, the drawing depicts Johann Matthias Oesterreich presenting Ghezzi with his engraved caricature of the draftsman. In an amusing kind of artistic tennis rally, Oesterreich himself subsequently made an engraving after this composition by Ghezzi, an impression of which is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden. That print includes the text below the image on the present drawing, along with two further lines indicating that the drawing by Ghezzi on which the print is based was in the collection of the Saxon King. Since the Dresden collection also contains a version of the present drawing, without text, which originates from the collections of the Royal House of Saxony, that is probably the primary version of Ghezzi's composition, but it is such an entertaining and accomplished invention that it is very possible that he would have been asked to make - as he so often did - further versions of the drawing.