Pietro Antonio de' Pietri

With Galerie Ratton et Ladrière, Paris; acquired in 1994 

Laid down. Big crease across middle. Some wear. Crease across bottom at lower legs of lady and baby.
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The fact that several versions of this composition are known suggests the importance that it must have had for the artist. One of these versions is a drawing at Windsor, very similar in size, medium and composition, but in reverse to the present work.¹  Another, in the same medium and direction as the Windsor version, but with some differences, is in the Louvre.²  A freer pen and ink sketch for a very similar composition was sold at Sotheby's in London (3 July 1995, lot 25).  Despite the existence of these and other versions of the composition, no painting of the subject by Pietro de' Pietri survives, nor is there any documentary evidence for his having received such a commission.³ 

The church that is given such prominence in the background, and is identified as 'S. Damiano e Maria,' perhaps an oblique reference to the church before which Saint Francis was martyred, S. Maria Maggiore, Assisi.

We are very grateful to Dr. Ursula Fischer Pace for her help in the cataloguing of this drawing. 

1. See A. Blunt and H.L. Cooke, The Roman Drawings...at Windsor Castle, London 1960, p. 119, no. 1039, reproduced, as Anonymous, Italian 17th Century, A Girl Taking a Vow of Poverty.  It came from an album of drawings by Pietro de'Pietri and other pupils of Maratta

2. Inv. 12369, as Italian, 17th Century, A Scene from the Life of St Francis, attributed to Pietro de'Pietri by Ursula Fischer Pace in 1988

3. For further information on his various depictions of the subject, see D. Graf, 'Neues zu Pietro Antonio de' Pietri,' Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, vol. 33, 1999/2000, pp. 439-41