Agostino Ciampelli

Once part of an album belonging to Christopher Race Mansel Talbot, Margam Abbey, Port Talbot;
thence by descent;
with Colnaghi's, New York, from whom acquired in 1989

New York, Colnaghi's, May 1989,  no. 2  (as Federico Zuccaro)

Window mounted. The upper right corner is made up. There are some small holes scattered across the lower part of the sheet, and a small tear at the centre of the lower edge, although these are neatly repaired from the verso. The drawing itself is fresh and strong.
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This and the following lot may once have formed a single sheet of paper.  They are clearly designs for a pair of spandrels, although they cannot at present be connected with any known paintings.  The powerful conception of the figures, the firm way in which they are set in space, and the clearly defined, rounded nature of their drapery is highly typical of Ciampelli.  A very comparable study, showing an old man seated in profile to the right, is in the Uffizi; in that drawing Ciampelli uses different media (black chalk on blue paper), but achieves the same bold outline and softly contoured forms.¹  Also comparable is a beautifully modelled study of a standing draped figure in the Ashmolean Museum, which has been related to a kneeling angel in Ciampelli's Baptism of Christ of circa 1605.²

1. C. Thiem, Florentiner Zeichner des Frühbarock, Munich 1977, p. 310, no. 66, reproduced
2. J. Brooks, Graceful and True: Drawing in Florence c. 1600, exhibition catalogue, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 2003, no. 32