Circle of Francesco Primaticcio

J.P. Heseltine (L.1507);
Henry Oppenheimer, his sale, London, Christie's, 10 July 1936, lot 67(A) as attributed to Giulio Clovio; 
private collection, New York

Paris, Musée du Louvre, Primatice, maître de Fontainebleau, 2004, pp. 107-112,  no. 18, reproduced

Sale catalogue, London, Christie's, 6 July 1976, under lot 91

Laid down on thin paper; top right corner as visible in photo, also top left has overall wear. White heightening fresh. Tears in legs of Mars at left and other repairs. Condition is complicated.
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The central composition of this elaborate scene seems to be loosely inspired by an engraving by Giulio Bonasone (fig. 1) after a drawing by Primaticcio, now at Windsor Castle.¹ The latter is very damaged but Popham and Wilde considered it most probably to be by Primaticcio himself.  The present drawing is in reverse to the engraving, the general format is larger and more square, and it includes a boat in the foreground and a group of horsemen to the left in the middle ground which do not exist in the print.  

A catalogue entry for a Primaticcio drawing sold in 1976, the Statue of Cybele in a Niche, mentioned the present drawing and noted Timothy Clifford's suggestion that it might be by Léonard Thiry (see Literature above). As Cordellier noted in the Primaticcio exhibition catalogue of 2004, this attribution to Léonard Thiry must have been prompted by similarities between the elaborate framing elements in this design and the series of drawings by Thiry for the Livre de la Conquête de la Toison d'or, engraved by Boyvin. 

The very complex frame, which includes many nude figures, putti, the salamander impresa of François I, as well as Mars and Venus in niches on either side, and which was probably intended to be executed in stucco, relates very closely to another study, also catalogued in the Primaticcio exhibition as Atelier de Primatice, which is almost identical in composition, but without a central scene (formerly, Manufacture des Gobelins, now Paris, Mobilier national).²  Sylvie Béguin noted a further similarity between the Mobilier national drawing and an engraving by Antonio Fantuzzi of 1543³ and suggested that the engraving, as well as a drawing of Bacchus in a niche⁴ were all related to the same project.  Although there is no documentation to prove that Primaticcio decorated a room with scenes of the Trojan War, the number of surviving related drawings with this theme suggest that he may have intended to, possibly for the Galerie Basse at Fontainebleau (as Clifford proposed) circa 1537-39.⁵ 

1. A.E. Popham and Johannes Wilde, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries, in the Collection of His Majesty the King, at Windsor Castle, London 1949, p. 303, no. 755, not reproduced 

2. See Primatice, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 110, no. 17, reproduced p. 111; (inv. no. GMTB/409 bis)

3. See S. Béguin, L'Ecole de Fontainebleau, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1972-73, p. 137, no. 144, and Primatice, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 110, no. 16, reproduced p. 111

4. Sale, London, Sotheby's, The Clifford Collection, 3 July 1989, lot 15

5. For a summary of connected works and a fuller discussion of these related materials, see Primatice, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 107 and under no. 17