Paolo Farinati

Sir Peter Lely (L.2092);
William Gibson, his attribution to Farinati and price mark on the verso;
Thomas Thorpe, bookshop, Guildford, from whom purchased by the present owner in 1950

Newcastle upon Tyne, Hatton Gallery, Italian and Other Drawings, 1500-1800, 1974, no. 15, reproduced pl. II;
London, Courtauld Galleries, Italian and Other Drawings 1500-1800, 1975, no. 10;
Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, San Giorgio Maggiore, Disegni veneti di collezioni inglesi, 1980, no. 38, reproduced fig. 38

Generally in good condition, paper still light blue and colours strong. Some slight foxing to the left side near the margin. An oil stain and two very small ones on the right side of the knee of the soldier. Some oxidization both at the top, on the shadow of the niche, and at the bottom of the sheet. Slight thining of the paper near the right foot. A small splash of brown wash towards the right margin above the hand of the figure.
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When exhibited in 1974, this large and impressive study of a soldier in a niche holding a book was tentatively identified as Attalus I, King of Pergamon. The motif of the serpent and the 'cista mystica' seems to have been relatively common on Greek coins, including those from Pergamon.

Stylistically this is very typical of Farinati, although such large studies are rare.  It can be associated with a very similar group of drawings of full length figures of Roman Emperors and famous heroes in niches, now in public and private collections.¹  One of those, in the Ashmolean Museum, The Emperor Antoninus Pius, was also in the Gibson collection and bears on the verso, like the present sheet, his attribution to Farinati and its price.  On the verso of the Ashmolean drawing is also an autograph inscription by Farinati recording that he made use of medals and ancient coins for these impressive finished studies.²

At the time of the Cini exhibition in 1980, Terence Mullaly suggested a dating for the group around 1560-70, although he pointed out that stylistically the present sheet is closer to a drawing in Stockholm, An Apostle in a Niche, which he thought should be dated circa 1590-1600.  Similar figures in niches were used by Farinati throughout his career, in the decoration of private palaces in and around Verona.  One example is his fresco decoration for Palazzo Guarienti in Verona, where similar allegorical and historical figures were integrated in an elaborate architectural setting.  These frescoes, executed for Giovanni Guarienti around 1530, were detached after the Second World War and are now in the Museo degli Affreschi 'Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle', Verona.³

1.  A.E. Popham and J. Wilde, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries...at Windsor Castle, London 1949, p. 220, nos. 299-307, not reproduced;  K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 1956, vol. II, p.106, no. 222

2. K.T. Parker, op. cit., p. 106, no. 222.  The same autograph inscription can be found on another sheet The Emperor Aulo Vitellio, formerly London, Hallsborough Gallery, see, Disegni veronesi del Cinquecento, exhib. cat., Venice, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 1971, pp. 44-45, no. 38, reproduced recto and verso

3. Paolo Farinati 1524-1606, exhib. cat., Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio, 2005-06, p. 224, no. 208, reproduced pp. 225-26