Attributed to Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo
A grotesque, male head seen in profile wearing a turban
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Attributed to Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo
(Milan 1538 - 1592)
A grotesque male head wearing a turban, in profile
Black chalk heightened with white, two shades of red and yellow chalks on greyish-green paper;
bears initials in pen and ink: M. A. on the recto, and on the verso: Michel Angelo; bears modern numberings on the old mount: 432 and 29, and on the backing 37 (crossed out)
413 by 259 mm
Possibly Etienne-François Haro (1827-1897), Paris (bears pencil inscription on the backing sheet: Haro Collection with attribution: M. Antonio Raimondi);
Jean Cantacuzène (1863-1934), Bucharest (L.4030);
This large head study, executed in two shades of red chalk heightened with white, combined with a further yellowish chalk used as a base for the rendering of the flesh, must have been drawn for its own sake, and not necessarily with a painting in mind.
The drawing reflects a tradition of monumental, coloured head studies, first explored in Leonardo's innovative pictorial practices, which were quickly embraced by his followers and by later generations of Leonardesque masters, all fascinated by these pictorial techniques. This influence is reinforced by the choice of subject: a male grotesque head with a plumed turban.
The Milanese painter Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo was also a poet, writer and theorist, and in his Trattato dell'arte della Pittura... (1584), he mentions the existence of pastel drawings by Leonardo, preparatory for the heads of Christ and the apostles in the Last Supper.1
1.G.P. Lomazzo, Trattato dell'arte della Pittura, scultura et architettura, Milan 1584, vol. III, p. 5
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