Cristofano Roncalli, called Il Pomarancio

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 18 February 1991, lot 20 (two in the lot),

Private collection, London;

sale, New York, Sotheby's, 30 January 2013, lot 231,

where acquired by the present owner

This study, typical of Roncalli's graphic style, can be closely compared to another similarly sized red chalk drawing by the artist, St. Gregory the Great in the act of blessing, in the British Museum.¹  As here, the figure in the British Museum is shown slightly from below, standing on a low plinth, like a statue. Pouncey and Gere suggested that a study such as this could have been executed in connection with the lost cupola decoration in the Basilica at Loreto, destroyed in around 1890. The lower part of that decoration with the Coronation of the Virgin, known from a modello, dated 13 December 1609, made for the Cardinal Antonio Maria Gallo, includes standing figures of the Doctors of the Church over plinths around a balustrade.² The present drawing must be executed for the same project, a work datable between 1609 and 1615.³

^1.J. A. Gere and P. Pouncey, Artists working in Rome, c. 1550 to c. 1640, London 1983, vol. I, p. 158, no. 256, reproduced vol. II, pl. 245; this connection was already pointed out at the time of the Sotheby's sale in 1991

^2.Loreto, Archivio della Santa Casa, inv. no. 0001

^3.C. Violini, Cristoforo Roncalli (1552–1626): pittore tra due secoli, unpub. PhD, Università degli Studi della Campania L. Vanvitelli, 2024, cat. A. 68, pp. 503-513