A Fine Line: Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

Giovanni Battista Trotti, called il Malosso

Christ Enthroned with the Madonna, Saint Francis kneeling below

VAT reduced rate

Auction Closed

July 7, 10:53 AM GMT

Estimate

7,000 - 9,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Giovanni Battista Trotti, called il Malosso

Cremona 1555 - 1619 Parma

Christ Enthroned with the Madonna, Saint Francis kneeling below

Pen and brown ink and grey wash, squared for transfer in red chalk;

the figure of Saint Francis indented with the stylus and outlined in black chalk on the verso;

bears old inscription in brown ink, verso: LB

372 by 247 mm

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 13 December 2001, lot 60;
with Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., London, by 2002

Possibly G.B. Zaist, Notizie istoriche de' pittori, scultori ed architetti Cremonesi, Cremona 1774, vol. II, p. 38 ('un bellissimo...assai morbido e pastoso disegno');
M. Tanzi, 'Qualche aggiunta al Malosso e alla sua cerchia', Prospettiva, January 1985, pp. 83-84, fig. 6

As noted by Baroni in 2002 (see Provenance) the present sheet may be a preparatory study, with differences, for Malosso's altarpiece of the same subject, signed and dated 1598, in the parish church at Manerbio, near Brescia. The altarpiece was subsequently copied, almost exactly, by one of Malosso's pupils, Bartolomeo Bersani, in an altarpiece intended for the church of Sant' Angelo in Cremona and now housed in the chiesa parrochiale in the town of Solarolo Monasterolo.

It has also been suggested that Malosso used the present drawing as a preparatory study for a second, earlier, painting, signed and dated 1593, in the church of San Clemente in the town of Bertonico, near Lodi, though in that picture the figure of St. John the Baptist joins that of St. Francis on the lower tier of the composition.