Paolo Farinati

Stadtgericht of the City of Leipzig (L.2731)

Generally in quite good condition. In the middle a trace of an old fold, with a little crack just below the horse in the middle of the composition. Some slight discoloration of the paper all around the edges, from an old mount. Some surface dirt and few defects on the paper manufacture. The white oxidized.
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This large horizontal drawing by Paolo Farinati, executed in his very characteristic style, was surely made in connection with a projected fresco decoration which was either never executed or has been lost. Farinati had frescoed the same subject, though in upright format, for the Cappella Marogna, in the Church of San Paolo in Verona (1565),¹ a decoration commissioned by Anton Maria Marogna.  Two preparatory drawings related to the Marogna Chapel have survived in the National Gallery of Scotland (as Phaethon in his chariot) and a more finished version is in the Louvre.² 

The subject is taken from the Old Testament (2 Kings 2:8): at this moment a chariot and horses, made of fire, suddenly appear and the prophet Elijah is lifted up in a whirlwind.  As Elijah is carried upwards, his mantle falls to the ground and Elisha picks it up. This last motif, which is missing from Farinati's upright versions of the scene, may have been added to fit better with the horizontal format.

^1.  Paolo Farinati 1524-1606, Dipinti, incisioni e disegni per l'architettura, exhib. cat. Verona, Museo di Castelvecchio, 2006, reproduced p. 229, fig. 210

^2. Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, inv. no. RSA 154; K. Andrews, Catalogue of the Italian Drawings, vol. I, p. 48, no. RSA 154, reproduced vol. II, fig. 344; Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 4851; exhib. cat., Verona 2006, op. cit., reproduced p. 229