Description:

executed c. 1620 - 1625
red chalk
170 x 134 mm

Provenance:

Earl Spencer, Althorp [L. 2341A]
acquired from the above by Baskett and Day Ltd, London
acquired from the above by the present owner, May 1983

Note:

As pointed out by Nicolas Turner in a letter dated 29.11.1999, the present drawing is connected to a red chalk composition drawing of five putti in the Royal Collection, Windsor (Mahon and Turner 1989, 164) [Fig. 1]. Although omitted from his original entry on the Windsor drawing, Turner suggests that the sheet is related to a painted commission of Venus Attiring from the Bath, or the Toilet of Venus. This painting, dated to c. 1622-3, is now on deposit at Oregon House, California (Turner 2017, 118.II) [Fig. 2]. The tumbling treatment of the putti in these works and in others from the first half of the 1620s was clearly influenced by Titian’s Worship of Venus which had passed into the Ludovisi collection by 1621 and would have been known by Guercino. The Windsor drawing was etched in reverse by Francesco Bartolozzi (Boydell, I, 30; Calabi 2151).

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