Pietro Berrettini, called Pietro da Cortona

Possibly Cavalier Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri;
N. Smith (L. 2296, partly erased);
Sale, London, Christie's, 29 November 1977, lot 69, for £2,000;
Sale, New York, Christie's, 12 January 1996, lot 131; acquired at sale

Possibly Filippo Baldinucci, Notizie dei Professori del Disegno, Florence 1975, p. 103;
Anna Lo Bianco in Pietro da Cortona, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 1997, p. 366, reproduced fig. 53a;
Jörg Martin Merz, Pietro da Cortona und sein Kreis, Die Zeichnungen in Düsseldorf, Berlin 2005, p. 58

Sold mounted and framed in a modern wooden gilded frame. Laid down on an old backing paper. A loss to the upper left corner. A small, old tear to the upper right corner, repaired. Very tiny losses to the lower corners, but barely visible. The paper is slightly yellowed, and there is some very slight staining near the upper edge, and overall some surface dirt, particularly at the edges of the paper. The ink is slightly sunk where it is at its darkest, but overall the condition is fine, and the design is still very strong.
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Dr. Jörg Merz confirmed the attribution of this drawing to Cortona in a letter dated 20 October 1977, and related it to the altarpiece that still hangs in its original location, in the Franceschi chapel of SS Michele e Gaetano, Florence.¹  In his life of the artist, Baldinucci notes that Cortona was commissioned by Filippo Franceschi in 1637 to work on a Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence.  At that moment, Cortona was in Florence, working in Palazzo Pitti at the behest of Grand Duke Ferdinando II de'Medici, having interrupted his work on the ceiling of the gran salone in Palazzo Barberini, in Rome. It is not clearly recorded when and where Cortona worked on the painting over the next years but it was finally installed in the chapel in 1653. 

Merz believes (recent written communication) that this drawing must date to 1637 and he proposes (as does Anna Lo Bianco -- see Literature) that it can be identified with the drawing mentioned by Pietro da Cortona on his receipt for his first payment for the commission, dating from May 1637. Lo Bianco also believes that the present drawing is the one mentioned by Baldinucci as being in the collection of Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri.²

Considering the length of time that elapsed before the painting was finished, and in view of Cortona's habit of making many figure studies for his works, one can assume that other drawings related to the commission must have existed, but are now lost. The present very finished drawing is therefore an important record and should be seen as an early modello, made soon after Cortona received the commission. The final composition differs somewhat in the positions of the main figures and is perhaps more dramatic, showing a slightly earlier stage in the martyrdom. 

Stylistically the present sheet is very similar to Cortona's composition drawing for the Age of Bronze, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, for which Jacob Bean also suggested a date of 1637, although the fresco itself was not completed until 1641.³

1. G. Briganti, Pietro da Cortona, Florence, 1962, no. 119, pl. 267

2. See Bruno Santi, Zibaldone Baldinucciano, Florence, 1981, p. 121

3. J. Bean, 17th Century Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979, no. 139, reproduced p. 108.