Mattia Preti

This very charming and characteristic study is for the putto holding up a curtain in the lower right of Preti's fresco, The Concert of Angels, painted 1651-2 in the vault of the apse of S. Biagio, Modena (formerly known as S. Maria del Carmine). The apse fresco was completed with the help of Preti's workshop, based upon his extensive preparatory drawings and bozzetti, while he painted the cupola.¹  The overall scheme of Preti's design was based upon Guido Reni's celebrated fresco, Angel Musicians, in the chapel of S. Silvia, in S. Gregorio al Celio, Rome.

The frescoes and related studies for San Biagio reflect a range of influences although, as in the present sheet, the realism and tactile sense of volume reflect primarily a strong debt to Correggio.  Preti's characteristic and vigorous use of red wash over red chalk is one of his favorite and most successful media.  A comparison between this drawing and Correggio's many red chalk studies for the cupola of the Duomo in Parma reveals the same interest in depicting anatomy accurately from a difficult, foreshortened angle. 

1. J.T. Spike, Mattia Preti: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Taverna 1999, pp. 185-9, no. 102