VENETIAN OR SOUTH GERMAN SCHOOL

( c.1600)

The Goddess Diana Seated in Clouds

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Pen and brown ink and brown wash, in an inscribed oval in pen and black chalk.
The sheet squared for transfer in red chalk.
Another study for the same figure, in a different pose, drawn in pen and brown ink, over a black chalk underdrawing, on the verso.
153 x 149 mm. (6 x 5 7/8 in.)
An attribution to the Augsburg printmaker Lucas Kilian (1579-1637) has been suggested. One of the leading printmakers working in Europe in the first quarter of the 17th century, and the most significant member of an extensive family of engravers who worked in Augsburg well into the 18th century, Kilian produced drawings as studies for prints and as designs for the applied arts, as well as, occasionally, autonomous works of art. He travelled in Italy between 1601 and 1604, spending time in Venice around 1602-1603, and there is a marked Italianate influence in some of his work. Autograph drawings by Kilian are relatively rare, however; examples are in the Staatsbibliothek in Augsburg, the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, the New York Public Library, and elsewhere.

 

Provenance

Anonymous sale, Milan, Sotheby’s, 8 May 2001, lot 428
Yvonne Tan Bunzl, London
Anonymous sale, London, Christie’s South Kensington, 7 December 2005, lot 312 (as Venetian School, 17th Century)
Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London, in 2008
Private collection, New York
Thence by descent.
 

VENETIAN OR SOUTH GERMAN SCHOOL

The Goddess Diana Seated in Clouds