Description:

unidentified collector’s mark (verso)
black chalk
296 x 211 mm

Provenance:

Christie’s, London: 20 April 1993, Lot 119 (as Bolognese School, 18th Century)
with Baskett & Day, London
where acquired by the present owner in April 1993

Note:

This drawing of a young man holding a sieve reveals Aureliano Milani’s distinctly Bolognese artistic education. He was trained by Cesare Gennari, the nephew of Guercino, and Lorenzo Pasinelli, but his naturalistic drawing style, was more greatly indebted to the school of the Carracci, which had dominated the artistic landscape in Bologna prior to Milani’s birth. Gianpietro Zanotti, in his 18th-century biography of the artist, noted that the young Milani drew copies after the works of the Carracci, and in particular the frescoes of the Palazzo Fava in Bologna. A more recent writer, Andrea Czére, wrote of Milani’s drawings that he ‘chose to return to the forceful plasticity of the classical tradition, his figures reflecting a profound assimilation of the Carraccesque studies of the live model. With his delicately rubbed chalk lines he produced a remarkable play of light and shade on the surface of the human form, creating an emotional atmosphere, which originates in the art of Ludovico.’

The present drawing cannot be connected to any known figures in Milani’s painted oeuvre, or in the frescoes of the Carracci, although it clearly reflects their influence. It may have been made as an exercise in drawing from life. The attribution to Milani was first suggested by Noel Annesley on 26 October 1997. A comparable figure study by the artist of a muscular man drawn in gently modelled black chalk came onto the art market in 2018 (Christie's, New York: 30 January 2018, Lot 48).

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