Roman School 17th Century

With Galerie de Bayser, Paris

Laid down. There are some very small black ink (?) spot stains in the right half, and also some small spots of pale bodycolour in the left, but these are both very minor. Otherwise the condtion is very good and the drawing is very fresh and strong.
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This accomplished and atmospheric drawing was previously attributed to the Veronese artist Paolo Farinati, whose technique is certainly comparable.  In other aspects, however, it seems closer to the artistic currents of early seventeenth-century Rome.  The airy, silvery landscape in the distance is so distinctly Claudian that it recalls the work of Giacinto Gimignani (1606-1681), one of Claude's Roman followers.  Parallels to the classical approach to the composition, the distinctive manner in which the vegetation and landscape are drawn, and the structured use of light and shade are apparent in two compositional drawings in similar media by Gimignani, Rebecca at the Well, in the Uffizi, Florence, and the Rape of the Sabines, in the Farnesina.¹

The drawing may well be an elaborate stage design of the type made popular later in the century by Giacomo Torelli, with the arcade to the left acting as a wing from which the actors can emerge.  It could also be the design for a frescoed wall decoration.

1. J.M. Merz, Pietro da Cortona und sein Kreis, die Zeichnungen in Düsseldorf, Berlin 2005, pp. 150-2, fig. 114