Giovanni Battista Gaulli, called Il Baciccio

This study of a soldier with a plumed helmet, seen from behind, seems closely related, with only minor differences, to a figure on the extreme left of a composition representing The quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, known both from an engraving and from a painting by Gaulli (fig. 1), now in Beauvais, Musée Départemental de L'Oise (inv. 63-95).  The engraving (fig. 2), by Robert van Audenaerd (1663-1743), was executed after Gaulli's design as the frontispiece to a thesis, dated 1693, dedicated to Pope Innocent XII, Pignatelli (1691-1700).  According to scholars the engraving preceded the painting, which broadly repeats the same composition, without the architectural frame, attendant figures and trophies, but with a few additions, namely the figure of Juno in the top right of the composition, and a decorative pair of putti holding the spear of Minerva, to the right of the same goddess.  Several drawings related to this project are known, the majority preserved in the Kunstmuseum in Düsseldorf.¹  Most of these are figure studies, but one is a compositional sheet, executed in pen and ink and brown wash over black chalk, where the same standing soldier can be found.²  Three other studies are in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and one in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble.³

The graphic style and execution of the present drawing is totally typical of the artist and, as Macandrew and Graf noted, Gaulli frequently changed his mind; even squaring on a drawing is no proof that the design was irrevocably fixed, and would be followed in the final painting.⁴  His working method explains the many changes and alterations that can often be seen in preparatory studies like this example, where the artist has slightly changed the position of the legs and of the soldier’s raised right arm. 

^1. Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum, inv. nos.  FP 10869, FP 11244, FP 11192, FP 1922recto, FP 9232, FP 11234 recto, FP 6917, FP 8065; see D. Graf, Die Handzeichnungen von Guglielmo Cortese und Giovanni Gaulli, Düsseldorf, 1976, vol. I, pp. 113-115, nos. 321-328, reproduced vol. II, pp. 195- 199, figs. 410-420

^2. Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum, inv. nos.  FP 10869; see D. Graf, op. cit, vol. I, p. 113, nos. 321, reproduced vol. II, p. 195, fig. 410

^3. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, inv. nos. 1970.63, 1970.64; Grenoble, Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. D 912 

^4. H. Macandrew and D. Graf, ‘Baciccio's Later Drawings, A rediscovered group acquired by the Ashmolean Museum,' Master Drawings, vol. 10, no. 3, 1972, p. 235