Ciro Ferri

In this large, heavily washed sheet with the Holy Family disembarking from a boat, the action in the foreground is elegantly balanced against a rocky slope topped by a variety of trees and foliage, solely drawn with the point of the brush and brown wash in a very pictorial and fluid manner. Several pentimenti in black chalk animate the very Cortonesque figure of a boatman to the left of the composition. The freedom of execution and command of the media are exemplary and show Ferri's ability as a draftsman. 

At the time of the Michael Ingram sale (see Provenance) Jörg Merz kindly brought to our attention the fact that he published this impressive drawing as Ciro Ferri in an article on the landscape drawings of Pietro da Cortona (see Literature). After discussing (and in many cases rejecting) various previous attributions to Ferri, Merz refers to our drawing as 'a point of departure in reconstructing his oeuvre as a landscapist'. He also noted that the attribution to Ferri dates back at least to the late 18th Century, when Conrad Metz made an aquatint, in reverse, after the drawing, which was then in the collection of Lord St Helens.¹ Merz notes that, as in other landscapes by Ferri, the handling in the background trees is comparable with foliage in drawings by Cortona (such as the Landscape with dancing nymphs, in the Louvre²), and that the figures 'conform perfectly to Ferri's style'.

1. See also inscription on the old mount

2. Paris, Louvre, inv. 509 (as Danse pastorale)