Circle of Paolo Caliari, called VERONESE
(Verona 1528 - Venice 1588)
Torso and Right Arm of a Male Nude
Black chalk, with touches of white heightening, on blue-grey paper.
Inscribed and numbered 'B.B. No 22' in brown ink on the verso.
163 x 188 mm. (6 3/8 x 7 3/8 in.) [at greatest dimensions]
Inscribed and numbered 'B.B. No 22' in brown ink on the verso.
163 x 188 mm. (6 3/8 x 7 3/8 in.) [at greatest dimensions]
While Paolo Veronese seems to have sold or gave away many of his drawings, a large number of his working drawings remained in his studio at the time of his death. These works were treasured by later members of the Caliari dynasty of painters for almost a century, until the death of Veronese’s grandson Giuseppe Caliari in 1681. The inventory of Giuseppe Caliari’s estate listed some 1,500 drawings, but with no distinction between those by Paolo Veronese and those by his younger brother Benedetto Caliari and his sons Carlo (or Carletto) and Gabriele Caliari. This extensive corpus of drawings was acquired, sometime after 1681, by the Venetian collector Zaccaria Sagredo.
An attribution to Veronese’s son, Carletto Caliari (1570-1596), may be considered. A gifted artist, Caliari was trained first in Veronese’s workshop and then in that of the Bassano family. He inherited his father’s studio on the latter’s death in 1588, and worked there alongside his brother Gabriele and his uncle Benedetto Caliari, both of whom were, however, much less talented as artists. Carletto Caliari’s drawings have long been confused with those of his father; as the scholar Richard Cocke has noted, ‘Confusion may have started because Veronese followed traditional workshop practice in training his son, Carletto, who copied a number of his father’s drawings…Carletto clearly benefited from the process, for after his father’s death he provided drawings for a number of commissions which were carried out by Veronese’s heirs.’
The inscription and numbering ‘B.B. No 22’ on the verso of this sheet identifies it as having once been part of the renowned Sagredo collection of drawings. The drawing was at that time thought to be by one of the Bassano family of artists, with the inscription ‘B.B.’ standing for ‘Bottega Bassano’; the numbering of the ‘B.B.’ drawings in the collection is known between 1 and 97.
The provenance of most of the drawings in the Sagredo collection - aptly described by one scholar as ‘the most important collection of drawings in eighteenth-century Venice as well as one of the richest in Europe’ - can be traced to the great Venetian collector Zaccaria Sagredo (1653-1729). Although the collection had been begun in the middle of the 17th century by his uncle Doge Niccolò Sagredo (1606-1676), it was Zaccaria Sagredo who was responsible for greatly expanding it. As Roger Rearick has noted, ‘Zaccaria was the most voracious of the Sagredo collectors, purchasing numerous drawings from every school and period, and making the Sagredo collection one of the most distinguished and certainly among the largest cabinets in Italy prior to his death in 1729.’ The collection, which included large groups of drawings by Veronese and his circle, as well as by Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto, Palma Giovane, Bernardo Strozzi and the Bassano family of artists, was kept in albums, with each drawing mounted onto sheets of heavy white paper using tabs at each corner of the sheet.
Zaccaria Sagredo bequeathed the collection to his nephew and heir, Gherardo Sagredo (1692-1738). At the latter’s death in 1738, an inventory of the collection noted some eight thousand drawings, almost all of which were assembled into fifty-seven albums, as well as more than 22,000 prints. Gherardo’s widow, Cecilia Grimani Sagredo (b.1755), tried to sell the collection en bloc but was only able to dispose of parts of it, while the rest was inherited by her two daughters, Catarina Sagredo Barbarigo and Marina Sagredo Pisani, and thence passed to the former’s two daughters Contarina and Cecilia Barbarigo. At some point in the late 18th or early 19th century some of the Sagredo drawings were acquired by a collector in Lyon, thought to be the landscape draughtsman Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (1736-1810). Large groups of drawings from the collection were later dispersed in Lyon, just after the First World War.
An attribution to Veronese’s son, Carletto Caliari (1570-1596), may be considered. A gifted artist, Caliari was trained first in Veronese’s workshop and then in that of the Bassano family. He inherited his father’s studio on the latter’s death in 1588, and worked there alongside his brother Gabriele and his uncle Benedetto Caliari, both of whom were, however, much less talented as artists. Carletto Caliari’s drawings have long been confused with those of his father; as the scholar Richard Cocke has noted, ‘Confusion may have started because Veronese followed traditional workshop practice in training his son, Carletto, who copied a number of his father’s drawings…Carletto clearly benefited from the process, for after his father’s death he provided drawings for a number of commissions which were carried out by Veronese’s heirs.’
The inscription and numbering ‘B.B. No 22’ on the verso of this sheet identifies it as having once been part of the renowned Sagredo collection of drawings. The drawing was at that time thought to be by one of the Bassano family of artists, with the inscription ‘B.B.’ standing for ‘Bottega Bassano’; the numbering of the ‘B.B.’ drawings in the collection is known between 1 and 97.
The provenance of most of the drawings in the Sagredo collection - aptly described by one scholar as ‘the most important collection of drawings in eighteenth-century Venice as well as one of the richest in Europe’ - can be traced to the great Venetian collector Zaccaria Sagredo (1653-1729). Although the collection had been begun in the middle of the 17th century by his uncle Doge Niccolò Sagredo (1606-1676), it was Zaccaria Sagredo who was responsible for greatly expanding it. As Roger Rearick has noted, ‘Zaccaria was the most voracious of the Sagredo collectors, purchasing numerous drawings from every school and period, and making the Sagredo collection one of the most distinguished and certainly among the largest cabinets in Italy prior to his death in 1729.’ The collection, which included large groups of drawings by Veronese and his circle, as well as by Jacopo and Domenico Tintoretto, Palma Giovane, Bernardo Strozzi and the Bassano family of artists, was kept in albums, with each drawing mounted onto sheets of heavy white paper using tabs at each corner of the sheet.
Zaccaria Sagredo bequeathed the collection to his nephew and heir, Gherardo Sagredo (1692-1738). At the latter’s death in 1738, an inventory of the collection noted some eight thousand drawings, almost all of which were assembled into fifty-seven albums, as well as more than 22,000 prints. Gherardo’s widow, Cecilia Grimani Sagredo (b.1755), tried to sell the collection en bloc but was only able to dispose of parts of it, while the rest was inherited by her two daughters, Catarina Sagredo Barbarigo and Marina Sagredo Pisani, and thence passed to the former’s two daughters Contarina and Cecilia Barbarigo. At some point in the late 18th or early 19th century some of the Sagredo drawings were acquired by a collector in Lyon, thought to be the landscape draughtsman Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (1736-1810). Large groups of drawings from the collection were later dispersed in Lyon, just after the First World War.
Provenance
From one of the so-called ‘Sagredo-Borghese’ albums, with the associated numbering (cf. Lugt 2103a) on the verso, and with provenance as follows:
Zaccaria Sagredo, Venice (Lugt 2103a)
By descent to his nephew, Gherardo Sagredo, Venice
His widow, Cecilia Grimani Sagredo
Thence by descent
Dispersed in a series of sales after 1743
Possibly Jean-Jacques de Boissieu, Lyon, by c.1802, and thence by descent to the Baron de la Chapelle, Mâcon
Dispersed with the rest of the ‘Sagredo-Borghese’ albums in Lyon in c.1919
Pietro Scarpa, Venice
Private collection, New York.
Zaccaria Sagredo, Venice (Lugt 2103a)
By descent to his nephew, Gherardo Sagredo, Venice
His widow, Cecilia Grimani Sagredo
Thence by descent
Dispersed in a series of sales after 1743
Possibly Jean-Jacques de Boissieu, Lyon, by c.1802, and thence by descent to the Baron de la Chapelle, Mâcon
Dispersed with the rest of the ‘Sagredo-Borghese’ albums in Lyon in c.1919
Pietro Scarpa, Venice
Private collection, New York.