Italian Drawings Identified by Philip Pouncey

Girolamo Siciolante
Triumph of King Pepin
ca. 1560-65
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Discovered by Pouncey under the name of Santi di Tito in the early 1950s and recognized as a study for Siciolante's painting in the Sala Regia in the Vatican.  The drawing was formerly owned by Vasari, who annotated it.  

Girolamo Siciolante
Man in a Cloak
ca. 1549-50
drawing
British Museum

"When acquired by the British Museum in the 1940s the drawing was attributed to Daniele da Volterra.  The attribution to Siciolante, put forward by Pouncey in 1954, was subsequently confirmed by his observation that this is a study for the Apostle in the centre foreground of the Assumption of the Virgin in the semi-dome of the Fugger Chapel (third on the right) in S. Maria dell'Anima, Rome.  The position of the figure's head is different in the painting, but the drapery corresponds in every detail.  The drawing was evidently made from a studio model."

Girolamo Siciolante
Virgin and Child enthroned with Saints
ca. 1547-48
drawing
Musée du Louvre

The Louvre catalogue remarks on how "astonishing" it seems that Pouncey had to be the one to reveal in 1950 that the longstanding museum attribution of this drawing to Garofalo was wrong, considering that the true artist's name was plainly written on the back of the sheet when it entered the collection in the 17th century.  It is the modello for Siciolante's altarpiece in the church of San Martino Maggiore in Bologna. 

Girolamo Siciolante
Virgin and Child enthroned
with St Peter and St Stephen
ca. 1541
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Formerly credited to Raffaellino del Colle, later to Roman School, this is a study for Siciolante's altarpiece painted for the Abbazia dei Santi Pietro e Stefano di Valvisciolo and now hanging in Palazzo Caetani in Rome.  

Vincenzo Tamagni
Three Standing Figures
before 1530
drawing
(formerly owned by Giorgio Vasari)
British Museum

"In 1946 this drawing prompted one of Pouncey's first articles.  Vasari's attribution to Tamagni (to whom he refers as Vincenzo da S. Gimignano Pittore on the mount) enabled Pouncey to reattribute the related fresco of St. Catherine Healing Matteo di Cenni in the Oratory of the Contrada dell'Oca, Siena, to Tamagni.  Although Oskar Fischel had previously connected the British Museum drawing with the fresco, he believed the drawing to be by Girolamo del Pacchia, to whom the fresco had been traditionally given, along with others from the same cycle.  Pouncey rightly contrasted the 'quaint, countrified manner' of Tamagni's Healing of Matteo di Cenni with the more up-to-date rendering of the other frescoes by Pacchia."

Pellegrino Tibaldi
Head of a Youth
1549
drawing
British Museum

"As Pouncey was the first to suggest, this is a fragment of a cartoon or full-size modello for the Adoration of the Shepherds, signed and dated 1549, in the Borghese Gallery, Rome.  The drawing corresponds with the head and hand of the youthful shepherd on the extreme right of the painted composition, though there are some differences in the position of the fingers.  Another fragment of the same cartoon is also in the British Museum, and a third in the Uffizi."

Pellegrino Tibaldi
Joseph released from Prison
ca, 1554-61
drawing
British Museum

"Pouncey's attribution to Tibaldi based on comparison with such paintings as the Visitation in the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino and the Decollation of the Baptist in the Brera, Milan, was confirmed by David McTavish's observation that this is a preparatory study for one of the ten frescoes in Tibaldi's cycle illustrating the Story of Joseph, formerly in the Palazzo Ferretti in Ancona and now detached and in a private collection in Switzerland.  Tibaldi's activity in Ancona is documented over the period 1554-61, the approximate date of the two pictures cited by Pouncey in support of his attribution."

Alessandro Turchi
St Lawrence preaching that the Poor
are the Treasure of the Church
ca, 1605-10
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Francesco Vanni
Blessed Ambrogio Sansedoni before Pope Clement IV
ca. 1596-97
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"The scene shows the Blessed Ambrogio pleading for the removal of the interdict which had been placed on Siena by Pope Clement IV (30 January 1266).  Vanni painted a lunette of the same subject in the Sala del Consiglio of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena."    

Giovanni de' Vecchi
Religion distributing Girdles of St Francis to Penitents
ca. 1585
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

"The subject commemorates the inauguration on 19 November 1585 of the Confraternity of the Girdles of St Francis by Pope Sixtus V (the figure kneeling in front of the pedestal to the right).  Religion, enthroned in the centre, receives with her right hand the girdles given her by St. Francis, who kneels on clouds above her; she holds in her left hand a sceptre crowned by the badge of the Order (two arms crossed).  The drawing was formerly attributed to Agostino Carracci, probably because of its connection with his signed engraving of the composition, dated 1586, which shows only slight differences of detail.  In spite of the connection with the engraving, Pouncey rightly doubted the attribution of the Edinburgh drawing, noticing that the overall handling was typical of de' Vecchi's style.  His observation called into question the assumption that Carracci was responsible for the design of the engraving, which is sometimes thought to be his." 

Timoteo Viti
Allegorical Composition
ca. 1501-1503
drawing
Musée du Louvre

This figure group was thought to be by Leonardo da Vinci when it entered the Louvre in the 1790s.  Pouncey first saw it in 1959 and made the suggestion of Timoteo Viti, one of the lesser-known figures in the orbit of Raphael – a suggestion that has so far remained unchallenged. 

Federico Zuccaro
Baptism of the Centurion
ca. 1580
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Pouncey connected both the drawing above and the one below to Federico Zuccaro's frescoes in the Cappella Paolina in the Vatican.

Federico Zuccaro
Vision of St Peter at Joppa
ca. 1580
drawing
Musée du Louvre

Taddeo Zuccaro
Angels in Clouds
ca. 1563-65
drawing
(study for ceiling fresco)
British Museum

Taddeo Zuccaro
Group of Four Muses
ca. 1557-59
drawing
Musée du Louvre

"Traditionally attributed to Daniele da Volterra and later classified as Anonymous Florentine.  Pouncey recognised that it was by Taddeo Zuccaro before April 1953.  J.A. Gere pointed out that this is a study for the group in the left foreground of the fresco of The Muses round the Castalian Spring, which Zuccaro painted on the loggetta vault of the garden house at Palazzo Bufalo near the Trevi Fountain." 

Jacopo Zucchi
Aesculapius as Allegory of Medicine
before 1596
drawing
British Museum