JACOPO NEGRETTI, PALMA IL GIOVANE (VENICE 1548-1628)

This powerful study was once considered the work of Jacopo Tintoretto. It was first recognized as a work by Palma by Stefania Mason Rinaldi in the second part of the 1977 catalogue for the collection of C.R. Rudolf (see Provenance). She was able to relate the drawing to one of the apostles witnessing the Assumption of the Virgin in the apse of the cathedral of Santa Maria Annunziata in Salò on Lake Garda, on which Palma started working in early 1602; it was completed by August of the same year (Mason Rinaldi, op. cit., no. 259, fig. 367; and Riccioni, op. cit.). One of few studies known for the decoration in Salò, the sheet – a chalk study in contrast to the vast majority of Palma’s studies, which are executed in pen and wash – achieved one of the highest prices in the sale of Rudolf’s celebrated group of drawings by the artist.