- 19
Federico Barocci Urbino circa 1535 - 1612
Description
- Federico Barocci
- recto: the rest on the flight into egyptverso: sketch of a male nude
- bears inscription, bottom center: Baroccio F
- black and red chalk and stumping, with traces of pen and brown ink (recto); pen and brown ink and wash (verso)
Provenance
Exhibited
Catalogue Note
Barocci painted a version of this subject for Duke Guidobaldo which was sent to Lucretia d'Este around the time of her marriage in 1571, and passed eventually to an English collection but is now lost. It seems to have been a very popular composition which Barocci repeated several times, and which survives in two autograph versions, one in the Pinacoteca Vaticano and the other in Santo Stefano, Piobbico (fig.1). All three paintings are thought to be datable between 1570 and 1573.
There are many drawings preparatory for the composition, both in chalk and in pen and ink, but this is the most complete compositional study. Scholars have commented on the fact that Barocci's Flight into Egypt was a kind of homage to Correggio's Madonna della Scodella, and in fact the position of St. Joseph in this drawing more closely relates to the Correggio than to Barocci's final composition. There seems even to be an indication of the donkey's head by Joseph's leg, as in the Correggio. For the paintings and related drawings, see A. Emiliani, Federico Barocci, Bologna 1985, pp. 78-85.