From Taddeo to Tiepolo: The Dr. John O’Brien Collection of Old Master Drawings
From Taddeo to Tiepolo: The Dr. John O’Brien Collection of Old Master Drawings
Valerio Spada
A title page decorated with a vase of flowers, lions and putti
Auction Closed
January 27, 09:35 PM GMT
Estimate
2,000 - 3,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Valerio Spada
Colle Valdelsa 1613 - 1688 Florence
A title page decorated with a vase of flowers, lions and putti
Pen and brown ink, over traces of black chalk, within brown ink framing lines;
inscribed in brown ink, lower centre: IMAGINES / Quorundam Principum / & Illustrium / VIRORUM and a command-of-hand flourish
220 by 152 mm; 8 1/2 by 6 in
where acquired, 2010
Drawings by the Florentine artist, calligrapher and etcher, Valerio Spada are remarkably rare on the market, due in part to the fact that many of his most ambitious works remain bound in the manuscripts for which they were originally intended.
The present work, so characteristic in its meticulous handling and consistent in subject matter with numerous other surviving sheets by the artist,1 remains in particularly fine condition and contains a delightful command-of-hand flourish below the inscription.
For further examples of Spada's work and a detailed account of his life and career see Phyllis Dearborn Massar's 1981 article in Master Drawings.2
1. See, for example, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., inv. no. 1987.40.60
2. P. Dearborn Massar, 'Valerio Spada, Seventeenth-Century Florentine Calligrapher and Draughtsman,' Master Drawings, vol. 19, no. 3 (1981), pp. 251-275