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Paolo Farinato

Verona 1524 – 1606 Verona

A procession of soldiers on horseback

pen and brown ink, brown wash heightened with white, on light brown prepared paper, inscribed and numbered lower left by Dezallier d’Argenville: “Paul Farinati”, inscribed on the eighteenth century mount lower left and right by Saint-Morys: “Paolo

349 x 508 mm.

Provenance

Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville (1680-1765), (Lugt 2951 “the mark mistakenly associated with Pierre Crozat”); his sale, Paris, 18-28 January 1779, part of lot 168; acquired by Charles-Paul de Saint-Morys (1743-1795); Private collection, Switzerland until 1989; Private collection, England

Literature

J. Labbé & L. Bicart-Sée, ‘La collection de dessins d’Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville’, Paris, Louvre, Notes et documents des musées de France, 1996, vol. 27, p. 149, no. 698

Terence Mullaly has suggested that this drawing dates from the beginning of Farinato’s career while he was still working in Verona. It is typical of his early, highly finished drawings based on the eccentric style of Nicola Giolfino, in whose workshop he was probably trained. A drawing of similar subject is at the Louvre. Another smaller version, with differences, from the collection of Jonathan Richardson Sen. and Richard Houlditch, was sold at Sotheby’s, 17 March 1975, lot 15.

This sheet must have left the ownership of Saint-Morys before he emigrated to London in 1790, when his entire collection of over 12,600 drawings were seized by the revolutionary authorities and moved to the Musée National (now the Louvre). He had purchased it, along with many others, from the estate of another prominent eighteenth century collector, Dezallier d’Argenville, whose shelf-mark and inscription were, until recently, thought to be that of Pierre Crozat (See J. Labbé and L. Bicart-Sée: ‘Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d’Argenville as a Collector of Drawings’, Master Drawings, vol. XXV (1987), pp. 276–81)