Manfredo LODI
( Active c.1600 in Cremona)
Study of a Man Sheathing a Sword, Looking Down
Pen and brown ink, over traces of an underdrawing in black chalk.
105 x 65 mm. (4 1/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
105 x 65 mm. (4 1/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
Formerly attributed to the early 17th century Cremonese painter Ermenegildo Lodi, this drawing may instead be attributed to his father Manfredo Lodi, about whom almost nothing is known. The attribution is based on the very close stylistic similarity with an equally small drawing of a kneeling Christ, in a private collection in Paris in 1991, which is a study for Manfredo Lodi’s only known painting; a fresco of The Baptism of Christ, signed and dated 1601, on the inner façade wall of the church of Sant’Agostino in Cremona. The composition of the fresco, which is prominently signed and dated ‘MANFRE LODI / FACIEBAT. 1601’, is derived from an earlier (1587) painting of the same subject by the Cremonese painter Giovanni Battista Trotti, known as Il Malosso, in the church of Santa Croce in Soresina.
Almost nothing is known of the Cremonese artist Manfredo Lodi. He is only documented between 1601 and 1611, and was a follower and collaborator of his fellow Cremonese painter Giovanni Battista Trotti, known as Il Malosso. Only two signed paintings by Manfredo Lodi are known today; a fresco of The Baptism of Christ in the church of Sant’Agostino in Cremona and a painting of The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, in an Italian private collection. His two sons Ermenegildo and Giovanni Battista Lodi were both artists.
Provenance
Paul Sandby, London (Lugt 2112)
Private collection, Paris
Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s South Kensington, 21 April 1998, part of lot 35
P. & D. Colnaghi, London, in 1998
Private collection, Middlesex
Thence by descent.
Private collection, Paris
Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s South Kensington, 21 April 1998, part of lot 35
P. & D. Colnaghi, London, in 1998
Private collection, Middlesex
Thence by descent.
Literature
Marco Tanzi, ‘Malosso e ‘dintorni’: dipinti e disegni’, Prospettiva, January 1991, p.74, note 13.
