Giuseppe Maria Crespi

Mastai Ferretti Collection, Rome

Unframed. A horizontal crease across the lower half. Some areas of light brown discolouration at the upper corners and overall some very pale scattered fox marks. The chalk is still strong.
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The attribution to Giuseppe Maria Crespi was proposed by Donatella Biagi Maino who has suggested that this must be a rare example of the artist's early style.  In his youth, Crespi frequented the atelier of the Bolognese Carlo Cignani.  When his master left for Forli, Crespi took over his studio with Giovanni Antonio Burrini.  Donatella Biagi has associated this sheet with Crespi's assiduous studies made in life-drawing academies, which he was attending at that time in the Casa Ghisilieri.  She makes an interesting comparison with the red chalk standing academy, now in Stuttgart,¹ although that seems closer to the tradition of the accademia carraccesca degli Incamminati.  The present study shares some similarities also with the work of Burrini.  

1.  Sammlung Freiherr Koenig-Fachsenfeld; see M. Pajes Merriman, Giuseppe Maria Crespi, Milan 1980, p. 73, reproduced fig. 32