Old Master Drawings

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Lot 3
  • 3

Gherardo Cibo

Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 USD
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Description

  • Gherardo Cibo
  • Study of a Mountain Landscape
  • Pen and brown ink and wash, heightened with white on blue paper;
    inscribed and dated in pen and brown ink, upper left:  Scogli A moti monte cu..... dirimpetto a S.n Gironnimo .... passi lupo...giugno. 1562. / da qui ..il primo [di] novembre 1564:- and numbered in pen and brown ink upper left:  14

     

     

Provenance

With Richard L. Feigen and Co.

Condition

Hinged to mount at upper margin. Overall condition is good. Uneven edges -once part of sketch book and torn out). Some light staining around the edges of the sheet. Some ink splashes at the right margin - possibly studio stains. Pen and ink and white heightening remains fresh and strong and so does blue paper. Sold in gilded frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

This and the following lot are very characteristic of Gherardo Cibo's charming drawings from nature and were clearly once part of a sketchbook.   Both sheets are similar in style and size to those of a sketchbook sold in London in 1989.1  It contained twenty-two pages, mostly pen and ink views taken in the neighbourhood of Senigallia in 1564, the date that is also inscribed on this sheet.

Cibo's drawings were previously attributed to a variety of northern artists and then 'Messer Ulisse Severino da Cingoli,' but Arnold Nesselrath discovered the true identity of the artist, who was from an aristocratic Genoese family.2  He studied in Bologna and Rome, and travelled in Germany and other places north of the Alps, which perhaps accounts for the northern qualities evident in his drawings.  He finally settled in Rocca Contrada on the Ligurian coast.  Also a botanist and a musician, Cibo could, as Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi wrote '...be considered as the very embodiment of that fascinating Renaissance ideal - the "artist-scientist-dilettante."3

1. Sale, London, Sotheby's, 3 July 1989, lot 106

2. A. Nesselrath, Gherardo Cibo, exhib. cat., San Severino Marche, 1989

3. L. Tongiorgi Tomasi, 'Gherardo Cibo:  Visions of landscape...', Journal of Garden History, vol. 9, no. 4, 1989, p. 215