Old Master Drawings

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Lot 50
  • 50

Attributed to Giulio Pippi, called Giulio Romano Rome 1499? - 1546 Mantua

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Description

  • Giulio Pippi, called Giulio Romano
  • a male figure seated on clouds: part of a design for a ceiling decoration
  • pen and brown ink and wash, squared for transfer in red chalk

Catalogue Note

This figure appears, in reverse, in an engraving of Jupiter with the Gods on Olympus by Pierre Milan, possibly after Giulio Romano (see Stefania Massari, Giulio Romano, pinxit et delineavit, Rome 1993,  p. xxviii, pl. 15).  In the introduction to her book, Massari suggests that Milan's print is a personal invention, inspired by the central panel showing the wedding of Cupid and Psyche in the Sala di Psiche of Palazzo Te, Mantua.  The composition of the print has also been associated with Primaticcio, but no such ceiling by him is known and stylistically it appears closer to Giulio Romano (see Henry Zerner, Ecole de Fontainebleau, Gravures, France 1969,  P.M. 5).