Pierino DEL VAGA (Florence, 1501 - Rome, 1547) - Lot 432

Pierino DEL VAGA (Florence, 1501 - Rome, 1547) Piero di Giovanni BONACCORSI known as Study for a Man's Face circa 1521-1522. Sanguine recto. Partial study for a child's figure and right arm Pen and brown ink. Height 10.4 cm Width: 8.1 cm Provenance: France, private collection This powerful red chalk study dates from Perino del Vaga's time in Rome, when he was inspired by the work of Michelangelo and working on the church of Trinité des Monts in 1523. The verso, in pen and brown ink, is similar to a sheet in the Louvre (inv.3352, recto/verso) and can be recognized by the superimposition of free, unfinished sketches. In fact, this unpublished sanguine is another version of a drawing kept in the Devonshire collection at Chatsworth House* for which, as early as 1936, A.E. Popham suggested it might have been preparatory to the fresco on the arch of the Pucci chapel in the church of the Trinità dei Monti in Rome. The more tormented face on our version could also be preparatory for that of a figure on the left in the Visitation* fresco. Be that as it may, although it seems difficult to determine their precise destination, these two drawings were indeed part of the fresco commissioned by Lorenzo Pucci, Cardinal Santiquattro, and executed as early as 1523. A. E. Popham, OMD, XI, 1936, p.43, reproduced; Michael Jaffe, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings, Roman & Neapolitan Schools, no. 378, p.234, reproduced.