Mauro Gandolfi Bologna 1764 - 1834

This highly finished drawing is after Pelagio Pelagi's self-portrait in the Uffizi, Florence (see Adriano Cera, La pittura neoclassica italiana, Milan 1987, pl. 557).  Mauro seems to have made a number of finished studies such as this, often copies of paintings, which were intended to be engraved.  For instance, when he was in Paris between 1801 and 1805, he made a watercolor copy after the beautiful painting by Cristofano Allori, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, which had been looted from the Pitti by the French and brought to Paris.  The watercolor was engraved and included in one of the volumes of Le Musée Français, an important catalogue of the national collection published by Robillard Péronville and Laurent between 1803-12 (see Prisco Bagni, I Gandolfi, Affreschi Dipinti Bozzetti Disegni, Padua 1992, no. 469, reproduced).  The technique of these studies is always similar and they are generally on parchment. 

Pelagio Palagi (Bologna 1775-1860 Turin), having served his apprenticeship first in Bologna and then with Camuccini in Rome, established himself as an independent painter in Milan, where in 1815 he opened a school for painters.  Pelagio was a very eclectic and cultivated artist, interested in architecture, sculpture, archaeology, numismatics, and the decorative arts.  His self-portrait in the Uffizi shows he was also a talented portrait painter.