Cherub Holding a Stick

Attributed to: Bartolomeo Passarotti (in circa 1580-1590)

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Specifications

Title	Cherub Holding a Stick
Material and technique	Pen and brown ink
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 236 mm Width 109 mm
Artists	Attributed to: Bartolomeo Passarotti
Accession number	N 101 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1580-1590
Watermark	Head in a circle (fragment, left/right half, diam. 44 mm, at the centre of the right edge; vV, 4P, cropped half folio), somewhat similar to Briquet 15658 (Italian make, doc. Ferrara 1553). [see image]
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a)
Provenance	Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1928 (Netherlandish, mid 16th century); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Material	Brown ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Pen > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Albert Elen

This hitherto unpublished Raphaelesque drawing has been grouped among the anonymous sheets and dated ‘Netherlandish, mid-sixteenth century’ ever since it was acquired by Koenigs in 1928.^[1]However, it is very closely related in style to the graphic work of the Bolognese artist Bartolomeo Passerotti, and in particular to two sheets with similar studies of cherubs: a double-sided sheet in Chicago,^[2]and another in an unknown collection.^[3]Those cherubs were drawn with a reed pen, with Passerotti’s characteristic cross-hatching to render the volumes of the body. However, since the cross-hatching is less systematic in this drawing one should rather think of a pupil. Many of Passerotti’s drawings display his great interest in human anatomy, as well as that of birds, as is the case in two drawings now in Haarlem.^[4]The way in which the wings are drawn with a few rapid pen strokes is also a feature of the Rotterdam sheet. Placing it in close proximity to Passerotti is supported by the provenance of the paper, which has an Italian type of watermark that is documented in Ferrara in 1553.^[5]The Haarlem sheets are dated 1575-90, so placing the Rotterdam drawing in the 1580s is only logical.

Footnotes

^[1]The drawing therefore has a Koenigs inventory number in the N category for the Netherlandish school.

^[2]Art Institute Chicago, inv. 1922.3938; Folds McCullagh/Giles 1997, no. 234, ill. This drawing is wrongly described as ‘Kneeling Putto Holding a Head’, whereas it is actually two separate studies.

^[3]Bought around 2006 from the art dealer Crispian Riley Smith, England.

^[4]Teylers Museum, inv. A*22 and A*23; Van Tuyll van Serooskerken 2000, nos. 365, 366, ill.

^[5]Gert Jan van der Sman and Chris Fischer did not support the attribution to Passerotti at an expert meeting in the museum on 10 October 2019. The latter ascribed it to Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, called Il Battistello (Naples 1578-Naples 1634), citing twenty-five drawings of his that are now in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm; Moir 1970, pp. 184-87. Our sheet, however, does not resemble any of those Stockholm drawings.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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