Italian Drawings Identified by Philip Pouncey

Bernardino Campi
Christ raising the Son of the Widow of Nain
ca. 1589
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

"Attributed by Berenson to the School of Titian when in the Clough collection. Sir Ellis Waterhouse attributed it to Muziano in 1934 and in 1939 Otto Benesch came near in describing the drawing as North Italian, close to Sustris.  It was identified in July 1947 by Pouncey as a preparatory study for Bernardino Campi's fresco of the same subject in the church of S. Prospero, Reggio Emilia, signed and dated 1589."

Bernardino Campi
Scene of Baptism
before 1591
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Giulio Campi
Judgment of Solomon
ca. 1539-42
drawing
Musée du Louvre

In 1971 Philip Pouncey compared the Louvre's Judgment of Solomon to a similar drawing at the Ambrosiana in Milan.  The latter had already been established as preparatory to one of a series of transept frescoes by Giulio Campi in the church of San Sigismondo in Cremona.  Pouncey's opinion that the Louvre drawing also preceded the fresco has remained unchallenged. 

Giulio Campi
Two Men sowing Seed
ca. 1537-38
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"Attributed to the School of Fontainebleau until Pouncey recognised it as being by Giulio Campi on 23 May 1960.  Bora comments on the stylistic similarity between this drawing and a study in the Louvre for the Judgment of Solomon in S. Sigismondo, Cremona, a fresco datable to circa 1540.  The influence of Giulio Romano is particularly evident in Giulio Campi's work in this period."

Simone Cantarini (il Pesarese)
Massacre of the Innocents
ca. 1642-47
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Simone Cantarini (il Pesarese)
Study for Mercury
ca. 1642-47
drawing
Musée du Louvre

These two studies (Massacre of the Innocents and Mercury) are recto and verso of the same sheet.  Pouncey proposed the authorship of Simone Cantarini in 1980.  There are three similar Massacre studies at the Brera in Milan, but any painting meant to follow either went unexecuted or has been lost.  The Mercury, on the other hand, can be connected to both a later engraving and a surviving painting in Stockholm – Mercury and Argus.      

Agostino Carracci
The Last Supper
ca. 1590-95
drawing
private collection

"Previously unattributed.  Pouncey, when shown the drawing in 1972, immediately recognized it as Agostino's modello for the painting originally inserted in the wooden tabernacle on the high altar of the church of San Cristoforo della Certosa in Ferrara.  The drawing corresponds in all essentials with the painting, but there are numerous differences of detail, the most apparent being the omission of the animals.  There is a much larger version of the painting, also by Agostino, in the Prado, which differs from the Ferrara painting and this drawing in a number of ways, notably in the architectural background and the figures at the right.  The Prado version, however, does include the fighting cat and dog."

Ludovico Carracci
Coronation of St Cecilia and St Valeriano
before 1619
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

"Catalogued among the anonymous Roman drawings by Blunt and Cooke.  The attribution to Ludovico was made by Pouncey on 15 November 1966.  Wittkower did not accept the drawing as an original by Ludovico and considered it to be either a pupil's work or a copy after a lost original.  Pouncy remained unperturbed, considering it to be a characteristic work by Ludovico in which we can see all the essentials of the artist's style." 

Alessandro Casolani
Study of Figures set into Architecture
ca. 1599
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Philip Pouncey was responsible for moving a group of drawings at the Louvre (including the one above) away from their traditional attribution to Domenico Beccafumi, giving them instead to Alessandro Casolani.  This group originated from a 1599 commission by Cardinal Federico Borromeo to assist the decoration of the Sagrestia Nuova in the Certosa di Pavia.  

Agostino Ciampelli
Marriage of the Virgin
ca. 1603
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Over time Philip Pouncey managed to verify Ciampelli's authorship of nine previously unattributed drawings at the Louvre, the Marriage of the Virgin among them.    

Niccolò Circignani (il Pomarancio)
Miracle of the True Cross
ca. 1582
drawing
British Museum

"As Alessandro Allori in the Fenwick catalogue.  The attribution to Niccolò Circignani was made by Pouncy in 1955 or 1956.  He also pointed out that the drawing is a study, with many differences, for the fresco on the right-hand side wall of the Oratorio del Crocifisso in Rome, where Niccolò was working towards the end of 1582."

Giulio Clovio
Dead Christ supported by St John the Evangelist
ca. 1551-53
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Belisario Corenzio
Saint miraculously reviving a Child
ca. 1610
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Entering the Louvre at the time of the French Revolution, Saint miraculously reviving a Child carried a traditional attribution to Carlo Maratti.  Pouncey rejected this idea, but then had to overcome the problem that most of Corenzio's drawings were preparations for frescoes and few of Corenzio's frescoes had survived.  

Correggio (Antonio Allegri)
Standing Female Figure
ca. 1518
drawing
British Museum

"In the Wellesley sale (Sotheby's, 1866) as Leonardo da Vinci, and subsequently catalogued by Robinson as 'ascribed to Leonardo,' this beautiful drawing entered the British Museum collection simply as 'anonymous Italian.'  Pouncey put forward the attribution to Correggio in 1957, pointing out that it appears to be by the same hand as a drawing of an Unidentified Mythological Subject, formerly in his own collection and now in the J. Paul Getty Museum.  In aspects of the handling of the chalk, there is a stylistic connection between the two works.  Popham included the drawing in his catalogue of the Museum's drawings by Parmese artists, but only as 'attributed to Correggio.' He did not discuss its stylistic relationship to the ex-Pouncey Getty drawing, but noted the similarity of the nude to the central figure of the Three Graces in one of Correggio's lunettes in the Camera di S. Paolo in Parma.  He pointed out that the figure in the drawing must be derived from a work of sculpture, since a drawing of an identical figure, seen from exactly the same viewpoint but standing on a low circular pedestal, is in the Louvre, where it too is attributed to Leonardo."   

Lorenzo Costa the Younger
Group of Roman Soldiers
ca. 1564-72
drawing
Musée du Louvre

This Louvre drawing led Pouncy to discover a triangular connection involving another related drawing in Edinburgh and a painting in Mantua.  The painting still hangs in Basilica Palatina di Santa Barbara, where it was commissioned in 1564.  It represents The Baptism of Constantine. His status as the first Emperor to adopt Christianity made him an acceptable bridge to classical imagery – hence, Costa's frieze of Roman soldiers.  They inhabit a band along the bottom of the completed painting.  The Edinburgh drawing lays out the entire composition, with Constantine at the top.  Once Pouncey had forged his three-way connections the two drawings were effectively attributed – the Mantua painting well-established as by Lorenzo Costa the Younger.         

Daniele da Volterra (Daniele Ricciarelli)
Virgin and Child
ca. 1545
drawing
British Museum

"Although traditionally attributed to both Fra Bartolommeo and Daniele da Volterra (according to inscriptions on the former backing), the drawing was offered for sale as 'Florentine School' when it appeared at Christie's, London, in 1952.  After its acquisition by the Museum, Pouncey argued for Daniele's authorship, comparing the figures with those in Daniele's painting of the Virgin and Child with the Infant Baptist in the Casa Ricciarelli, Volterra, in which the Virgin similarly holds a scroll."