Old Master Day Sale including Old Master Paintings, Drawings and British Works on Paper
Old Master Day Sale including Old Master Paintings, Drawings and British Works on Paper
ANDREA BOSCOLI | FOUR MALE NUDES
Lot Closed
July 29, 01:21 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 25,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
ANDREA BOSCOLI
Florence 1560 - 1608 Rome
FOUR MALE NUDES
Red chalk on paper washed light pink;
bears recent attribution in red chalk lower right: M Bon[naroti]; old attribution in pen and brown ink on the verso: Mi....l Buonarotti and in red chalk: No 8, and inscriptions in black chalk: Diese Capitalzeichnung stamt aus der fürstl Schwarzenbergs Saml., and in another hand: 4 Giganten…
unframed: 269 by 378 mm
framed: 475 by 575 mm
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Dukes of Schwarzenberg Collection (from an inscription on the verso);
Arnold Otto Meyer (1825-1913), Hamburg (L.1994)
This is a rare example of Boscoli's red chalk studies of male nudes, probably drawn from life. His drawings are generally characterized by small scale figures and executed in pen and ink enriched by abundant wash to create strong and decisive contrasts of light and dark. In the present sheet, the angular rendering of form is typical of his graphic style, but the scale of the nudes in four different poses, one lying down, is rarer, if very much in keeping with drawings of Boscoli's Florentine contemporaries. This sheet shows the influence of artists such as Giovanni Battista Naldini (c. 1537-1591), a very forceful draughtsman and pupil of Pontormo (1494-1557).
Some similarities are also apparent with Boscoli's larger anatomical studies with full length nudes, often executed in pen and ink and washes. The artist did, however, also use the medium of red chalk throughout his career, and especially in the late 1580s.1
Boscoli trained with Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608) and Santi di Tito (1536-1603), whose influence can be detected in the elegant mise-en-scene of some of his compositions.
1. For an example of a red chalk study dating to the late 1580s, see J. Brooks, Graceful and True, Drawing in Florence c. 1600, exhib. cat., Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 2003, p. 66, no. 17, reproduced