Giuseppe Passeri

Estimate

2,500 - 3,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Giuseppe Passeri
St. Agnes standing in a niche, another female figure kneeling before her
Pen and dark brown ink and wash, over red chalk, heightened with white;
on the verso is a red chalk study of a standing figure

Provenance

William Bates (L.2604);
sale, London, Knight, Frank and Rutley, 20 September 1961, lot 4 (as Domenichino), purchased by Ralph Holland

Exhibited

Newcastle, 1964, no. 57;
Newcastle, 1974, no. 90

Catalogue Note

This is clearly related to two Passeri drawings in the Louvre of female figures in niches, one with putti holding papal attributes and the other holding a lamb, as in the present study.¹ Another drawing, possibly for the same project, is in Copenhagen (Kobbersticksammlung, Tu 1215).Legrand and d'Ormesson (loc. cit.) suggest that Passeri might have been inspired in his use of the shell niche as a setting for the figures by the example of Rusconi's sculptures of Virtues in Sant'Ignazio (1685-6).

1. C. Legrand and D. d'Ormesson-Peugeot, La Rome baroque de Maratti à Piranèse, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1990-91, pp. 86-87, nos. 80a and b