BOLOGNESE SCHOOL, 17TH CENTURY

Attributed in the past to the Bolognese artist Francesco Brizio, a pupil of Agostino Carracci, who had learned from the master the art of engraving, this drawing can also be compared with the beautiful sheet of Saint Christopher in the Devonshire collection attributed instead to another Bolognese artist, the painter and engraver Pietro Faccini at Chatsworth (M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings. Bolognese and Emilian Schools, London, 1994, no. 538, ill.). The finely executed crosshatching shows the hand of an artist skilled at engraving, while the typology of the figures, with strong facial features and fashionable outfits, is characteristic of works by artists of the Bolognese school.