Drawn to Life – Works on Paper from a Distinguished Private Collection
Pietro Antonio de' Pietri
The Birth of the Virgin
Estimate
7,000 - 9,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Drawn to Life – Works on Paper from a Distinguished Private Collection
Pietro Antonio de Pietri
(Premia 1662 - 1716 Rome)
The Birth of the Virgin
Red chalk and red wash, extensively heightened with white, within red chalk framing lines
Bears numbering in the lower margin 50
255 by 173 mm
With Pandora Old Masters, New York, in 1999;
Private collection, until 2011;
with Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London,
where acquired by the present owner in 2011
P. Bellini (ed.), The Illustrated Bartsch. Vol.47: Italian Masters of the Seventeenth Century, New York 1983, p. ll, no. 1 (89)
The composition of this drawing is partly based, in reverse, on an etching of The Birth of the Virgin by Carlo Maratta, which, like most of the elder artist’s prints, is thought to date from the beginning of his career, before 1660. In the present sheet, Pietro de’ Pietri has made some significant changes to Maratta’s composition, notably in the replacement of two women standing at the left edge of the print with the figure of Saint Joseph, and the addition of putti at the top of the composition.
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