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
Giovanni Battista Pace
Portrait of an artist, traditionally identified as Pier Francesco Mola
Auction Closed
January 27, 09:35 PM GMT
Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Giovanni Battista Pace
Rome c.1640/5 - after 1665
Portrait of an artist, traditionally identified as Pier Francesco Mola
Pen and brown ink and wash
220 by 168 mm; 8 3/4 by 6 5/8 in
Dan Fellows Platt (1873-1938), Englewood, NJ (L.750a and 2066b);
Louis de Wild, until 1967;
with Victor Spark, New York;
Norbert Roesler,
his sale, New York, Christie's, 31 May 1990, lot 24 (as Pier Francesco Mola);
with Mia Weiner, New York, Old Master Drawings, November 1990, no. 26 (as Pier Francesco Mola),
where acquired, 1990
Very little is known of Giovanni Battista Pace’s life and career and his date and place of birth remain uncertain. He was the son of the still-life painter Michele Pace, called Campidoglio and was a close follower of Pier Francesco Mola, whose style had an enormous influence on him, resulting in many of Pace’s drawings, including the present sheet, being historically attributed to Mola.
Like Mola, Pace took an interest in portraiture, and in particular in the caricature. When Dr. O’Brien’s drawing (then given to Mola) was with Mia Weiner in 1990, she remarked upon its similarity to a drawing of a cleric in the British Museum (also previously attributed to Mola, but subsequently published by Richard Cocke as a work by Giovanni Battista Pace1). These portraits are indeed remarkably similar in their handling of pen and ink and wash, as is another, A Caricature of a Man in an interior, that was with Colnagni in 2000 (as Pace).2
1. R. Cocke, 'The Drawings of Michele and Giovanni Battista Pace', Master Drawings, XXIX, Winter 1991, p. 383, no. 26 (as G.B. Pace)
2. Colnaghi & Co., New York and London, An exhibition of Master Drawings, 2000, no. 20