Donato Creti

Sale, Munich, Karl & Faber, 17 November 1960, lot 174;

with Katrin Bellinger, Kunsthandel, Munich, Meisterzeichnungen 1500-1900, June -July 1990, no. 18, reproduced,

where acquired by Diane A. Nixon in 2002

The Burlington Magazine, December 1989, vol. 131, no. 1041, p. xxii, reproduced [advertisement];

M. Riccomini, Donato Creti. Le opere su carta, Turin 2012, pp. 34-35, cat. 23.2, reproduced figs. 23.2r, 23.2v

The charming studies on the recto of the present sheet do not appear to be related to any known work. However, the resting figure of Diana, goddess of the hunt, studied three times on the verso, closely corresponds to the drawing of Sleeping Diana housed in the Uffizi Gallery,¹ which in turn relates to the Colloquio galante in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.² The Bologna drawing is dated 1714; however, Riccomini suggests, on stylistic grounds, that the Nixon drawing dates somewhat later.³

Additionally, the same figure of Diana can be seen repeated twice on the verso of a highly important sheet, Allegorical Tomb of Charles Montague, Count and Earl of Halifax, in a Roman private collection.⁴

The present work is stylistically wholly characteristic for the artist.

1.Florence, Uffizi, Inv. no. 4042 S

2.Inv. no. 1901

3.Riccomini, op. cit., pp. 34-35, cat. 23.2

4.Ibid.