Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Il Baciccio

With Hal O'Nians, London, from whom purchased, May 1965 (as Pietro da Cortona)

Edinburgh, The Merchants' Hall, Italian 17th Century Drawings from British Private Collections, 1972, no. 58, reproduced p. 100, fig. 58;
Newcastle, 1974, no. 85, reproduced pl. XXIV;
London, 1975, no. 56;
Newcastle, 1982, no. 68, reproduced pl. XVI A

H. Macandrew in collaboration with D. Graf, 'Baciccio's later Drawings: a re-discovered group acquired by the Ashmolean Museum,' Master Drawings, X, no. 3, 1972, pp. 258-259, note 13 

Overall in good condition. Only hinged at the top. Ink and wash fresh. A small brown stain on the lower tunic of St. Anthony and a few one less visible in the same area. Two very light stains to the right lower margin not very visible. A little nick in the paper to the left top margin it is possible that this drawing was once in a bounded album.
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Ralph Holland bought this very finished and handsome study as Pietro da Cortona.  He was, though, the first to recognize it as the work of Gaulli and to point out that it is preparatory for the altarpiece in the church of Monte Calvario, Imperia, formerly Porto San Maurizio (fig 1). The altarpiece was originally in the church of the SS. Annunziata (Porto San Maurizio), which was demolished after it was damaged by an earthquake in 1887.  The altarpiece was painted in Rome, and, as discovered by Robert Enggass, Gaulli was paid for it in July 1707, proving that it was a late work, not an early one as had previously been suggested.¹  The main difference between the present study and the painted work is in the position of the two putti in the left foreground.  In the altarpiece, Gaulli related these two figures in a much more successful way, enhancing the apparition of the Madonna and Child to the kneeling St. Anthony. 

1.  R. Enggass, The Painting of Baciccio, Giovanni Battista Gaulli, 1639-1709, Pennsylvania 1964, pp. 127-128