Live Auction 14452Old Master & British Drawings & Watercolours
Giovanni Manozzi, Giovanni da San Giovanni (San Giovanni Valdarno 1591-1632 Florence)
Lot 16 PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

Giovanni Manozzi, Giovanni da San Giovanni (San Giovanni Valdarno 1591-1632 Florence)

Head of a satyr, looking down

Closed5 July 2017

Price Realised

GBP 10,000

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Giovanni Manozzi, Giovanni da San Giovanni (San Giovanni Valdarno 1591-1632 Florence)
Head of a satyr, looking down
with inscription ‘Di Baroccio.’ (on the recto of the old mount)
traces of black chalk and red chalk
9 5/8 x 6 7/8 in. (24.5 x 17.3 cm.)

Nathaniel Hone (1718-1784) (L. 2793).
Maurice Delacre; Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern, 21-22 June 1949, lot 9 (as Barocci).
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 4 July 2007, lot 34.

Specialist note

Sensitively drawn in red chalk, this study relates to Giovanni da San Giovanni’s frescoes in the Salone degli Argenti at Palazzo Pitti, Florence (1635), where many satyrs with similarly pointy faces appear in the foreground of the mural Expulsion of Muses and Poets from Mount Parnassus. Following the principles of life drawing learned from his master Matteo Rosselli, this head study conveys a striking realism through the soft modelling of the chalk. Giovanni’s outstanding talent as a draughtsman and devotion to this medium were celebrated by his biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, who described ‘his immoderate commitment to the study of drawing’ (Baldinucci, Opere, XI, Notizie de’ professori del disegno, Milan, 1812, p. 111).