Giuseppe Cesari, il Cavalier d'Arpino (Arpino 1568-1640 Rome)

The combination of black and red chalk, as well as the loose handling of the medium, are typical of Arpino's drawings from the early 1590s. This drawing is very close to a circa 1585-90 Study of an Angel with its similar use of black and red chalk (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; inv. I 376; M.S. Bolzoni, Il Cavalier Giuseppe Cesari d'Arpino: maestro del disegno: catalogo ragionato dell'opera grafica, Rome, 2013, no. 31). It can also be compared to the Madonna and child, Saint Ann, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, and James, from circa 1592-93 in the Musée Pincé, Angers (inv. 185; Bolzoni, op. cit., no. 44).

The present drawing might be a first idea for one of the putti in the ceiling fresco The Ascension of Christ, Moses, Prophets and Sibyls, and Saint Andrea and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the Oligiati chapel in the Church of Santa Prassede in Rome (H. Röttgen, Il Cavalier: Giuseppe Cesari D'Arpino: Un grande pittore nello splendore della fama e nell'incostanza della fortuna, Rome, 2002, no. 49). A preparatory study for the complete ceiling fresco is in the Uffizi, Florence (inv. 906 E; Bolzoni, op. cit., no. 73).

We are grateful to Marco Simone Bolzoni for his help in cataloguing this drawing and for confirming the attribution on the basis of a digital photograph.