Live Auction 10713Old Master & British Drawings & Watercolours
Ippolito Costa (Mantua circa 1506-1561) or Giovanni Battista Bertani (Mantua circa 1516-1576)
Lot 5

Ippolito Costa (Mantua circa 1506-1561) or Giovanni Battista Bertani (Mantua circa 1516-1576)

The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha

Closed9 December 2015

Price Realised

GBP 1,375

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Ippolito Costa (Mantua circa 1506-1561) or Giovanni Battista Bertani (Mantua circa 1516-1576)
The Martyrdom of Saint Agatha
with inscription 'Giorgio Vasari'
pen and brown ink, brown wash heightened with white, squared in black chalk, watermark Strasburg lily
6 7/8 x 5 in. (17.4 x 12.7 cm.)

Specialist note

Engraved in reverse by Scultori in 1577 (see British Museum Inv. 1872,1012.3459; P. Bellini, L'opera incisa Adamo e Diana Scultori, Vicenza, 1991, no. 34, p. 220). A painting by Costa of the subject, in the same direction as the present drawing but omitting the tree in the background, is in Mantua's Cathedral. Luigi Lanzi suggested that the painting was executed after a drawing by Giovanni Battista Bertani (see L. Lanzi, Storia pittorica della Italia, IV, Bassano, 1809, p. 16).