Description:

inscribed upper left: J.S? Carazzi, and blue collectors mark lower right, L.1902
pen and brown ink
133 x 86 mm

Exhibitions

Morelli Collection

Note:

This delicate brown ink drawing by Bartolomeo Passarotti is of an intimate scale befitting its highly personal subject matter, the mother and child. The scene corresponds closely to two other drawings from Passarotti’s oeuvre depicting women at rest. These drawings come from the sales of the Taubman collection at Sotheby’s in 2016, and the Wolff collection at Bruun Rasmussen in 2018.

The drawing was formerly in the collection of the esteemed collector, historian and connoisseur, Giovanni Morelli (1816-1891). His mark can be seen on the lower right of the present drawing, however his imprint can be felt as clearly in the way art historians have come to approach questions of attribution. The “Morelli Method” of forensic artistic analysis focused on the execution of specific motifs and idiosyncrasies of style in order to reach more reasoned conclusions. This method was widely adopted across various art historical fields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and still provides connoisseurs with a set of guidelines for detection to this day.

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