Bernardino Cesari

Thomas Dimsdale (L.2426);
W.A. Lestevenon;
Marquis de Lagoy (L.1710);
sale, London, Sotheby's, 2 July 1984, lot 40 (as Giuseppe Cesari);
with Colnaghi, London; acquired in 1984 

Gainesville, et al., 1991-93, no.17, reproduced (as Giuseppe Cesari)

Sold mounted and framed in a modern wooden gilded frame. Window mounted on old mount. The paper was previously fully laid down, and has been lifted. There are remnants of this old backing sheet on the verso. A small loss to the lower left edge. The paper is slightly lighter along the left edge, where it may have once been covered by an old mount. Some slight surface dirt at the upper part of the sheet. In general, however, the condition is good, and the chalk is still strong and fresh.
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The present drawing came from the celebrated eighteenth-century French collection of the Marquis de Lagoy, in whose manuscript inventory it is meticulously described: "École Romaine. giuseppe Cesari detto il Cav. d'Arpino. no.114. Étude de quatre figures nues et couchées qui paroissent destinées pour un tableau du jugement dernier...'.  Professor Herwarth Röttgen has, however, informed us that he believes this is in fact a good example of the style of Giuseppe Cesari's brother, Bernardino, stressing that in his view, numerous drawings held under the name of the better known Giuseppe Cesari, called Cavaliere d'Arpino, are in fact the work of Bernardino.

When cataloguing this drawing (as Giuseppe Cesari) for the 1991 Horvitz exhibition, Linda Wolk-Simon observed that the composition suggests the artist was consciously studying models in a variety of poses, including foreshortened ones.  At least two of the figures derive from earlier sixteenth-century sources, and it is possible that all are inspired by previous works.  The reclining nude in the foreground to the left recalls the figure of Noah in Michelangelo's Drunkenness of Noah, in the Sistine Chapel, while the foreshortened figure to the right, perhaps a soldier envisioned for a Resurrection, is close to Raphael.  Indeed, it is reminiscent of a black chalk study by him, now in the British Museum.¹ The validity of these observations is corroborated by a passage in Giovanni Baglione's life of Bernardino, where we find an interesting description of characteristics of his style which are in some way also evident in the present sheet: 'Fu pittore, e si portava assai bene: ma in disegnare pulito, e diligente pochi gli furono uguali. E tra le altre fatiche, ch'egli fece, copiò alcuni disegni di Michelangelo Buonarroti, che erano di Thoma[s]o del Cavaliero donategli dell' istesso Michelangelo,..........Bernardino li fece tanto simili, e sì ben rapportati, che l'originale dalla copia non si scorgeva. In somma disegnava, e nell' imitare era eccellente.'² The very polished use of the red chalk, the decorative aspects of the present study, and its apparent inspiration by the works of important earlier masters, do seem to point to its being by Bernadino.

The initial basis for the distinction between the paintings and drawings of the two brothers was established by Professor Röttgen in his catalogue of the 1973 exhibition devoted to the work of Giuseppe,³ and further developed in his subsequent monograph on the artist.⁴  In a recent communication, Röttgen argued that despite close similarities of style between the two artists, ultimately Bernadino's use of line is different: 'Questi disegni, nonstante la loro affinità stilistica a quelli del fratello Giuseppe, si distinguono per una tendenza a line meno energiche, quasi autonome dalle forme dei corpi e dai contorni delle figure, che oscillano e si dimenano, per cosìdire come 'capelli al vento', lente e decorative'.  Furthermore, sheets such as this, in which nudes are studied for their own sake without any evident final purpose, are quite characteristic of Bernardino's work, although it should be noted that Giuseppe Cesari's painted oeuvre does contain examples of very similar groups of nudes.⁵ The present study does not, however, relate to any surviving painted work by either brother, nor to anything known through replicas by members of Giuseppe's studio.  According to Professor Röttgen, comparable drawings to this can be found in Weimar (Kunstsammlungen, KK8786) and Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, K.d.Z.16201,16202).

1. See P. Pouncey and J. A. Gere, Raphael and his Circle , London 1962, no. 34, pl. 36

2. Giovanni Baglione, Le vite de' pittori, scultori ed architetti,..., Rome 1642, p. 147ff

3. See Il Cavalier d'Arpino, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, pp.167-72, figs 149-59

4. Herwarth Röttgen, Il Cavalier Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino, Un grande pittore nello splendour della fama e nell'incostanza della fortuna, Rome 2002

5. See Röttgen, op. cit., 2002, p. 439, nos. 207-8, reproduced