Pietro Buonaccorsi, called Perino del Vaga

With Emmanuel Moatti, Paris; acquired in 1994

New York, Emmanuel Moatti at Jack Kilgore, Old Master Drawings , May 1994, no.3, reproduced; 
Mantua, Palazzo Te, Perino del Vaga, tra Raffaello e Michelangelo, 2001, cat. no. 111, reproduced p. 223

Overall the drawing is in very good condition. Window mounted to show recto and verso. On the verso tiny pieces of japan paper just at the top of the drawing to the left, near the Horvitz mark, to reinforce some very small cracks due to ink biting. A few smallish brown stains visible on the verso, one very light brown coming through to the recto on the standing soldier to the left of the composition. Ink is overall fresh and strong. The drawing is mounted and framed in a modern gilded frame.
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The recto of the present drawing, representing Camillus and Brennus, is the third known compositional drawing for the octagonal frescoes decorating the Loggia degli Eroi in Palazzo Doria, Genoa. (fig.1)  The attribution to Perino was first suggested by Bernice Davidson who pointed out the connection with one of the five stories of Roman heroes that are part of the sumptuous decoration commissioned by Andrea Doria from Perino when the artist, fleeing the Sack of Rome, arrived in Genoa in 1527.  Perino worked on this extensive and demanding scheme on and off for about ten years;  the decoration of the Loggia degli Eroi  was painted between 1530 and 1531.  Perino brought to Genoa a knowledge and experience of unparalled grandeur together with an understanding of large scale fresco decoration which only an artist formed in Rome at that period could have offered.  His work was highly influential for the following generation of Genoese painters who learned much from his painting and often imitated his graphic style.

The other compositional studies related to the same project are Marcus Curtius throwing himself into the Chasm of the Campidoglio, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and Horatius Cocles defending the Bridge, in the British Museum.¹ Both these drawings already have the octagonal shape of the final frescoes and appear more finished than the vibrant and sketchier Horvitz example, in which Perino's abilities as a draughtsman and his skilful use of the pen are very apparent.  Although it is quite close to the painted version, it is still a working drawing in which the artist is searching for the best compositional solution.  The major difference with the fresco is the position of the figure crouching to the extreme left.  Another study for that figure, first attributed to Perino by Bernice Davidson in 1995 and later connected to the fresco of Camillus and Brennus by Linda Wolk-Simon in the Mantua exhibition, was sold in these rooms, 25 January 2006, lot 46.²  The crouching, twisted figure represents a stage of Perino's thinking between the Horvitz drawing and the final painting. Various other studies connected with the decoration of the Loggia are known, in public and private collections³  and a partial copy, probably from a lost finished study for the fresco, is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv.21514).  The drawing on the verso of the present sheet does not, however, appear to be related to the same project.

Brennus was a general of the Gauls, who invaded Italy and entered  Rome without opposition.  The Romans fled into the Capitol to which the Gauls then laid seige.  The Romans agreed to pay a gold ransom to buy off the besiegers but complained during its weighing that the Gauls were using false weights, whereupon Brennus threw his sword into the scale pan, making the ransom even higher, and cried: 'Vae victis'.  Camillus, a celebrated hero then in exile, was sent for by the besieged Romans and, forgetting their previous ingratitude, came to the aid of his countrymen and routed the Gauls before the payment could be handed over.

1. See exh. cat., Mantua, op. cit., p.220,  no.109, reproduced and  Philip Pouncey and J. A. Gere,  Raphael and His Circle, London 1962, vol.I, p. 96, no. 164, reproduced vol.II, pl. 131

2. See exh. cat., Mantua, op. cit., p. 223, reproduced

3. See exh. cat., Mantua, op. cit., pp. 222 and 224-7