Italian Drawings Identified by Philip Pouncey

Giulio Romano
Virgin and Child
ca. 1515-16
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Entering the Louvre in 1671, this drawing was attributed to Giovanni da Udine, one of Raphael's collaborators.  That idea did not survive the drawing's encounter with a Louvre painting of the Virgin and Child with young St John the Baptist, documented by the young Giulio Romano.  The drawing lacked St John but was otherwise very close to the painting.  Yet the drawing was not firmly attributed to Giulio until Pouncey made that claim in 1956.  Earlier scholars tended to classify it as a copy of a drawing by Giulio, arguing that the workmanship was not fine enough to be autograph.  Ironically, another school of thought made Raphael himself responsible for the drawing, implying the highest quality of workmanship.  Over time, consensus has supported Pouncey's idea that Giulio made the drawing (and then the painting) early in his career while still under the direct influence of Raphael.    

Girolamo da Treviso
Virgin and Child with Four Saints
ca. 1535-37
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"Called 'School of Raphael' until Pouncey recognised it in 1953 as being by Girolamo da Treviso.  The Virgin and Child, seated beneath a baldacchino, with Mary Magdalene and a seated bishop, probably St. Anselm, on the left, and St. Joseph and St. Catherine of Alexandria on the right.  In his article in the Burlington Magazine, Pouncey comments on the resemblance of this drawing to one at Windsor, "not merely in style and handling but also in some of the persons represented, and there can be no doubt that it must have been done at about the same time, that is to say towards the end of his career in Italy."  Girolamo da Treviso came to England in 1538 and worked for Henry VIII as a military engineer until his death at the siege of Boulogne on 10 September 1544." 

Bernardino India
Virgin and Child with St Anne
ca. 1579
drawing
British Museum

"When this drawing turned up for sale at Christie's, London, in 1971, Pouncey recognised its relationship with the picture in the Cappella Pellegrini in S. Bernardino, Verona, painted in 1579 by the little-known Veronese artist Bernardino India.  He specialised in fresco decoration, following the style of artists such as Giulio Romano and Parmigianino, in the palaces and villas built by local architects such as Sanmicheli and Palladio.  This typical Pouncey "find" is another example of a minor artist being resuscitated as a draughtsman." 

Innocenzo da Imola
The Flagellation
before 1545
drawing
British Museum

"Following the attribution written in pencil on the verso, Popham gave this drawing to Garofalo.  Pouncey pointed out that 'in style, types and treatment of drapery, this drawing comes very close to Innocenzo.'  The drawing is from the Phillips-Fenwick collection of Old Master drawings, which was presented to the Museum in 1946, the year after Pouncey joined the Department.  Comprising well over 1,000 Italian drawings of all schools, it was the largest single acquisition of such material by the Department in the 20th century."  

Giovanni Lanfranco
Arms of Cardinal Fabrizio Veralli
in Allegorical Form
ca. 1616
drawing
Musée du Louvre

In the famous 18th-century collection of Pierre Crozat, Lanfranco's armorial fantasy was correctly attributed.  It was even engraved by Francesco Villamena.  When the drawing entered the Louvre as Revolutionary booty, Lanfranco's name was still attached to it.  But by the middle of the 19th century this drawing had been banished – for unknown reasons and by unknown hands – into the limbo of the Anonymous Italians.  Where it remained until 1955, when Philip Pouncey was surprised to discover such an obvious Lanfranco among the Anonymous Italians at the Louvre.        

Pirro Ligorio
Christ driving the Money-changers from the Temple
before 1583
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Pirro Ligorio
Figure of Victory writing on Shield
before 1583
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"Pirro Ligorio illustre par excellence l'esprit d'une époque attachée, à travers la mode des "vignes" et des palais ornés d'antiques, des villas et des jardins, à la reconstruction d'une Rome imaginaire et idéale, résultant des travaux de l'humanisme érudit et de l'élan créateur de l'école de Raphaël.  Ligorio est antiquaire au double sens du terme: artiste, dessinateur et architecte, cherchant dans l'Antiquité la source première de son inspiration, mais archéologue aussi, l'un des meilleurs du siècle, fouilleur méthodique et rigoureux, auteur d'une oeuvre immense pour la plupart restée à l'état de manuscrit."

Jacopo Ligozzi
Design for Medici Arms
ca. 1610-20
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Jacopo Ligozzi
Design for Medici Arms
ca. 1610-20
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Pouncey was able to identify Ligozzi's sketches for Medici arms and see them shifted out of the Anonymous 16th-century Italians file at the Louvre.  One among several court artists in Florence, Ligozzi would have been called on for a ceaseless stream of such dynastic design-ideas.  As far as anyone knows, these two were never publicly produced.  However, many of the projects requiring designs like these were ephemeral, and may not have been recorded – processional or funerary trappings, for example.   

Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo
Allegory of Justice overcoming Injustice
ca. 1575
drawing
Musée du Louvre

This drawing carries on old inscription declaring that it was made by Daniele da Volterra.  Both Daniele and Lomazzo were dominated by the example of Michelangelo, but Pouncey made the distinction that Lomazzo's forms were more sinuous and somewhat less bulky.  Two other drawings at the Louvre and one at the British Museum were also reattributed to Lomazzo by Pouncey.    

Lorenzo Lotto
St Simon
1538
drawing
British Museum

In 1958 the collection originally formed by 18th-century artist John Skippe was sold in London, and Pouncy advocated successfully for the purchase of this drawing by the British Museum.  He recognised it as preparatory to the painted Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints, now in the Pinacoteca in Ancona.    

Lorenzo Lotto
Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor
ca. 1524
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Master of the Egmont Albums
Battle of Horsemen
ca. 1570-1600
drawing
British Museum

"Pouncey first recognised the existence of an artist whom he named the 'Master of the Egmont Albums' in 1958, when he was studying the collection of drawings at Yale University.  There he found four pen drawings by the same distinctive hand, all from albums put together in the early eighteenth century by the first Earl of Egmont.  Since this discovery, numerous drawings by the same hand have come to light." 

Master of the Egmont Albums
Suffer the Little Children to come unto Me
ca. 1570-1600
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Master of the Egmont Albums
The Way to Calvary, with St Veronica
ca. 1570-1600
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"The Way to Calvary perfectly characterizes the pen drawings by means of which Pouncey was able to describe the artistic personality of the Master of the Egmont Albums: freedom and speed of execution, minimal facial definition, dense composition that is yet structured geometrically and balanced symmetrically, retention of clarity despite Mannerist flourishes, regular and consistent methods of hatching."

Giulio Mazzoni
Time unveiling Truth
ca. 1555-60
drawing
British Museum

 

"An old inscription in ink in the lower corner, da Micalangelo.B.R., was modified by a subsequent hand in a blacker ink with the prefix: di Sebastiano del Piombo 4 imitator di.  The drawing was attributed to Sebastiano in the Fawkener inventory of 1845 and remained under that name until 1955, when Pouncey noticed its connection with the fresco by Mazzoni in the Galleria (or 'corridoio degli stucchi') of the Palazzo Spada in Rome, a decoration probably carried out in the first half of the 1550s.  Mazzoni, a stuccatore, painter and sculptor, came from Piacenza.  He was taught stucco-work by Daniele da Volterra, and the Michelangelesque technique of this drawing does indeed suggest Daniele's influence."