Santi di Tito

Sale, Munich, Karl and Faber, 24-25 May 1975, lot 260;

Herbert List (1903-1975), Munich (L.4063);

The Ratjen Foundation, Vaduz;

with Katrin Bellinger Kunsthandel, Munich, 1999,

where acquired by Diane A. Nixon

S. Lecchini Giovannoni and M. Collareta, Disegni di Santi di Tito, exhib. cat., Florence, Uffizi, 1985, p. 36, under no. 14

The subject of this drawing, executed in Santi’s delightful and characteristic combination of pen, wash, black chalk and white heightening on vibrant blue paper, was previously thought to depict the Raising of the Widow’s Son at Nain. Another drawing relating to this composition and similarly thought to illustrate this subject is in the Royal Collection, Windsor.¹

Lecchini Giovannoni and Colareta (see Literature) discuss the Nixon drawing in relation to a more highly finished sheet in the Uffizi, Florence, depicting the Resurrection of Lazarus.² They also discuss the close correspondence of these two drawings with the aforementioned drawing in Windsor, noting how the consistent narrative and architecture found in all three drawings lends itself more to the subject of the Resurrection of Lazarus than to the Raising of the Widow’s Son at Nain. Another drawing, also given to Santi and drawn in a similar combination of media to the Nixon drawing, is in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland, where it is described as Christ healing the Paralytic.³ The formats of the two sheets are, however, quite different, the Scottish drawing focusing on the lower half of the composition and executed in a landscape format, while the Nixon drawing shows a more complete composition, in portrait format.

^1.Windsor, Royal Collection Trust, inv. no. RCIN 990049; https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/2/collection/990049/the-raising-of-the-widows-son-at-nain

^2.Lecchini Giovannoni and Collareta, op. cit., pp. 35-36, no. 14, reproduced fig. 15

^3.Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland, inv. no. D 5681; https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/133050