Girolamo GENGA
(Urbino c.1476 - Urbino 1551)
A Reclining Male Nude
Pen and brown ink.
Laid down, and the sheet made up at the top and upper right edges.
Faintly inscribed Titiano dorsodur at the lower left.
147 x 245 mm. (5 3/4 x 9 5/8 in.)
Laid down, and the sheet made up at the top and upper right edges.
Faintly inscribed Titiano dorsodur at the lower left.
147 x 245 mm. (5 3/4 x 9 5/8 in.)
In his 1568 biography of the artist, Giorgio Vasari noted that Girolamo Genga drew from an early age. Our present understanding of Genga as a draughtsman is largely due to the scholar Philip Pouncey, who was responsible for the identification of a number of significant drawings by this rare artist. While this addition to the still relatively small corpus of drawings by Genga cannot be related to any surviving painting or fresco by the artist, the figue type and compact pen hatching are characteristic of his work. Genga’s preference for drawing in pen and ink was established early in his career. As Furio Rinaldi has noted, ‘Genga’s habit of defining volumes in pen and ink by means of an ever more dense and expressive curvilinear crosshatching…would characterize his graphic style for the rest of his life.’ The artist also came to use red chalk frequently in his drawings.
The present sheet may have been intended to represent a river god. River gods appear in several decorative mural projects by Genga for the Della Rovere family, notably in paintings for the Palazzo Ducale and the Villa Imperiale Vecchio in Pesaro. As Rinaldi has noted, ‘These images of river gods were later introduced by Genga into his designs for decorative objects created for the duke [Francesco Maria Della Rovere], such as istoriati vessels and plates.’ Such drawings include two designs for a vessel decorated with reclining river gods, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and a large drawing of an unknown mythological or allegorical subject, depicting several male nudes clambering over the figure of a colossal reclining nude woman, which is now divided into two separate sheets. One half of this sizeable drawing, which may be a design for a salver, is in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle and the other is in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
This drawing may also be compared in figural style and technique with several other sheets by Genga, such as a study of a kneeling nude youth in the Louvre, while similar male nudes are also found in drawings of a Battle Scene in the Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden and a General with his Army Crossing a River in the Louvre.
The present sheet may have been intended to represent a river god. River gods appear in several decorative mural projects by Genga for the Della Rovere family, notably in paintings for the Palazzo Ducale and the Villa Imperiale Vecchio in Pesaro. As Rinaldi has noted, ‘These images of river gods were later introduced by Genga into his designs for decorative objects created for the duke [Francesco Maria Della Rovere], such as istoriati vessels and plates.’ Such drawings include two designs for a vessel decorated with reclining river gods, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and a large drawing of an unknown mythological or allegorical subject, depicting several male nudes clambering over the figure of a colossal reclining nude woman, which is now divided into two separate sheets. One half of this sizeable drawing, which may be a design for a salver, is in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle and the other is in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan.
This drawing may also be compared in figural style and technique with several other sheets by Genga, such as a study of a kneeling nude youth in the Louvre, while similar male nudes are also found in drawings of a Battle Scene in the Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden and a General with his Army Crossing a River in the Louvre.
A painter and architect, Girolamo Genga was, according to Giorgio Vasari, a pupil and assistant of Luca Signorelli, working with him at Monteoliveto Maggiore, the Cappella Nova in the Duomo at Orvieto, the Palazzo Petrucci in Siena, and elsewhere between 1499 and c.1511. He also spent a few years in the studio of Pietro Perugino, where he met and came under the influence of Raphael, a fellow student in Perugino’s workshop. Although he spent some years in Florence and Siena, Genga worked mostly in Umbria. In the early years of his career he often collaborated with the artist Timoteo Viti in Urbino, frescoing scenes from the life of Saint Martin for the Arrivabene chapel in the Duomo, commissioned in 1504, as well as providing temporary decorations for the funeral of Duke Guidobaldo I da Montefeltro in 1508 and the entrance of Leonora Gonzaga into Urbino in 1509. He also painted two frescoes for the Palazzo Petrucci in Siena, working alongside Signorelli and Pinturicchio. In September 1513 Genga received the commission for one of his most important surviving works, the altarpiece of the Dispute over the Immaculate Conception, painted for the church of Sant’Agostino in Cesena between 1516 and 1518 and installed there in 1520; the painting is now in the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan. In 1518 Genga again worked with Viti on a fresco cycle for San Francesco Grande in Forlì, but by 1519 he was in Rome, where he painted an altarpiece of the Resurrection for the Oratory of Santa Caterina da Siena, commissioned by members of the Chigi family.
Summoned back to Urbino in 1522 by Duke Francesco Maria I della Rovere, who appointed him court architect and artist, Genga was given the task of restoring, enlarging and decorating the Villa Imperiale at Pesaro. The remainder of his career was spent mainly in Urbino and Pesaro, working on architectural and artistic projects for Francesco Maria della Rovere and his successor, Guidobaldo II. For the latter he designed the church of San Giovanni Battista in Pesaro, begun in 1543 but finished after Genga’s death by his son Bartolomeo.
Summoned back to Urbino in 1522 by Duke Francesco Maria I della Rovere, who appointed him court architect and artist, Genga was given the task of restoring, enlarging and decorating the Villa Imperiale at Pesaro. The remainder of his career was spent mainly in Urbino and Pesaro, working on architectural and artistic projects for Francesco Maria della Rovere and his successor, Guidobaldo II. For the latter he designed the church of San Giovanni Battista in Pesaro, begun in 1543 but finished after Genga’s death by his son Bartolomeo.
Provenance
Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 28 March 2019, lot 53 (as Italian School, 17th Century)
Private collection, New York.
Private collection, New York.