Giovanni Domenico Ferretti

Estimate

7,000 - 9,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Giovanni Domenico Ferretti
an allegory of abundance
Black chalk and gray wash;
bears attribution in pen and brown ink on the verso: Gio. Battista Ferretti ; and in a later hand, probably that of Charles Gasc (see L.542): Lemoine (Francois) née a Paris en 1688, mort en 1737, élève de L. Galloche/Dessin acheté a Paris le 6 Fèvrier 1860/h=o^m, 318 L=o^m, 475/ with a paraphe

Provenance

Probably Charles Gasc (L.1068);
Amédée-Paul-Emile Gasc (L.1131);
with Galerie de Bayser, Paris; acquired in 2004

Catalogue Note

Ferretti was one of the preeminent Florentine painters and printmakers of his generation, and his decorative projects were particularly admired. This drawing is related to one of his ceiling paintings in the Palazzo Ginori, Florence, executed crica 1729. The Allegory of Abundance was one of three compositions that Ferretti painted for Marchese Carlo Andrea di Lorenzo Ginori -- a significant figure in the government of the city and the founder of the Doccia porcelain factory -- who commissioned several artists to decorate rooms in his family palace. A bozzetto (location unknown) and another drawing (Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille), both quite similar to the painting, are also known.¹This study differs from the final ceiling in the number and placement of the figures, as well as their orientation, but the similarities are otherwise so numerous that it must nonetheless represent the artist's early ideas for the composition. The Horvitz drawing is characteristic of Ferretti's fluid technique and graceful style.

1. F. Baldassari, Giovanni Domenico Ferretti, Milan 2002, pp.155-157, figs.72-75