ATTRIBUTED TO BARTOLOMEO CESI (BOLOGNA 1556-1629)

The attribution to Matteo Rosselli was suggested by an inscription on the old mount. Subsequent authors have identified this sheet as the work of the Bolognese artist Bartolomeo Cesi (see most recently Zacchi, op. cit., 1997). Having studied with the Carracci, Cesi often drew from life, using workshop assistants as his models. The artist’s biographer, Giulio Cesare Malvasia, writes how Cesi’s figure drawings were particularly appreciated by collectors in his own time.