Andrea Appiani

With Aldega-Gordon, New York; acquired in 1995

A.L. Clark (ed), Mastery and Elegance, Two Centuries of French Drawings from the Collection of Jeffrey E. Horvitz, Cambridge 1998, p. 84, fig. 9

Sold in modern wooden gilded frame. The sheet is cut rather irregularly around the circular design. The drawing is in excellent condition, with the chalk still very strong and fresh.
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This drawing relates to a fresco commissioned in 1789 by the Archduke Ferdinand, son of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, for the Villa Reale, Monza.  The villa was designed and built in 1769 by Giuseppe Piermarini (a pupil of Vanvitelli) at the instigation of the Empress, who wanted to create a country estate for her fourth son, close to the main source of imperial power, the Palazzo Reale in Milan.  Appiani's frescoes, which depicted episodes from the story of Cupid and Psyche, were intended for the Rotunda that led to the Archduke's apartments.  The Horvitz drawing is related to the circular fresco on the vault.

A preparatory study for this fresco was sold at Sotheby's London (8 December 1972, lot 42).  That sheet was squared for transfer and included a peacock at the lower centre.  As the present drawing is dated three years later than the fresco and is executed in a highly finished style, it appears to be have been made in preparation for a print after the vault, whose charming subject must have made it immensely popular.  A drawing by Appiani depicting Parnassus, in a comparably finished style, was sold by Christie's in London (9 April 1990, lot 73).