Giulio Pippi, called Giulio Romano

Giuseppe Vallardi (L.1223), and in the right corner another Vallardi collection stamp (not in Lugt);
Comte Rey de Villette (L.2200a);
Jacob H. Wiegersma (L.1552b)

Window mounted. On the verso a 5cm strip of paper around each margin and in the center where the sheet was once possibly folded. The paper is quite thin and has cracked in places also because of the indentation with a stylus of all contours. There are small scattered losses and some tears and dents at the margins. The drawing has areas of abrasion, see for example the two angels on the left and right at the upper section of the sheet. Other abrasions at the lower, right and left edges. At the centre, traces of creases in the paper where the paper was hung to dry during the manufacturing process. Some surface dirt and light grey staining in the upper section near the margin.
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A complete composition with all its contours indented for transfer, this previously unknown study seems to belong stylistically to the years when Giulio Romano was working on the Adoration of the Shepherds with St. Longinus commissioned by Isabella Boschetti circa 1536 for the basilica of Sant' Andrea in Mantua and now in the Louvre.¹   A stylistically close comparison can also be made with the pen and ink study for a Marriage of St Catherine now in the Biblioteca Reale, Turin² which was dated by Hartt circa 1531 and thought to be a modello for a lost painting.  The Turin sheet is highly finished and enriched by a generous use of wash, like the present drawing which can also be considered a modello for a lost or unexecuted work.

1. Inv. 421; see Giulio Romano, exhib. cat., Mantua, Palazzo Te, 1989, reproduced p. 431
2. Inv. 12/29; ibid., reproduced p. 430