Pietro Malombra

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 1 December 1964, lot 19 (as Venetian School, late 16th Century; 
with H. Shickman Gallery, New York;
Christian Humann, New York,
sale of his Estate, New York, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 12 June 1982, lot 7 (as Circle of Palma il Giovane);
with Pandora Old Masters, New York; acquired in 1999

New York, Pandora Old Masters, An Exhibition of Old Master Drawings and Oil Sketches, 1999, no. 4 (as Giovanni Battista Zelotti)

The Age of Titian, exhibition catalogue, Edinburgh, The National Gallery of Scotland, 2004, p. 270 under no. 122 (catalogue entry by Aidan Weston-Lewis)

Laid down on japan paper, and must have previously been laid down on another old backing. Slight staining at the top but colour of the paper still blue green. Three brown stains one on the middle of the standing group of ladies to the right, the other two over the bishop's cloak. The drawing is still fresh, as is the pen and ink and white heightening.
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The attribution to Pietro Malombra has been suggested by Aidan Weston-Lewis, on the basis of comparison with a drawing in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, representing St. Stanislaus raising a dead man, with St. Hyacinth kneeling before the Trinity above.¹ Until published by Weston-Lewis as Malombra, the Edinburgh drawing had always been associated with the work of Veronese artists, but it is in fact the only known drawing that can be securely connected to a surviving painting by Malombra. It is a preparatory study for the altar of the Polish Nation in the left aisle of the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua. The painting is signed by Malombra and described by the biographer Carlo Ridolfi in his life of the artist.  The present drawing has been attributed in the past to the circle of Jacopo Palma il Giovane and to Giovanni Battista Zelotti (circa 1526-1578), but the stylistic similarity with the Edinburgh sheet suggests that it is in fact a very interesting and plausible addition to the extremely small corpus of drawings by Malombra.

1. See The Age of Titian, op. cit., pp. 270-71, cat. no. 122, reproduced