A Rider, and Several Head Studies

Author: Rosie Razzall

This drawing is one of four sheets in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen by the artist known as Pseudo-Pacchia, who was active in Siena around 1530.^[1] This name was given to the artist by the art historian Philip Pouncey in the 1950s on the basis that his drawings bear some similarity to those of Girolamo Pacchia (c.1477-after 1533), as well as other Sienese artists such as Giovanni Antonio Sodoma (1477-1549) or, more loosely, Domenico Beccafumi (1484-1551).^[2] However nothing else about the artist is known; only the dispersed survival of a number of sheets in several collections that appear to be by the same hand, many of which belonged to the same sketchbook. Sixteen of these sheets were sold in the H.S. Reitlinger sale in 1953.^[3] The Rotterdam sheets may also have come from the same sketchbook, which would therefore have already been dismantled by the time the pages were bought by Franz Koenigs between 1920 and 1930.^[4] Other sheets probably from the same sketchbook include three pages in London,^[5] one in New York,^[6] one in Chicago,^[7] one in Brussels,^[8] one last seen in Pouncey’s collection,^[9] and at least seven on the art market.^[10] Many of them, like the Rotterdam sheets, are in poor condition and have suffered losses across the sheet or its edges. Several have page numbers written in the upper corner in pen and ink, the highest of which is 87.^[11] There are therefore probably many other unknown pages from this sketchbook either lost or yet to come to light.

The subjects in the Pseudo-Pacchia drawing book are mainly figure and head studies in pen and ink, copies after classical and contemporary sculpture, warriors on horseback and fighting swordsmen, and some studies of ornaments^.[12] Given the repetition of several motifs and the filling of many pages with several unrelated studies, the sketchbook probably served as a place to make free studies and copies, to repeat ideas in new variations, and to make reference notes for future use. Three out of the four Rotterdam drawings have been drawn on both sides of the sheet. This drawing shows a man on horseback in sixteenth-century dress facing to the right, pointing in front of him with his left arm. Riders also appear on I 501 verso and I 503, as well as on the verso of the drawing in New York. In this instance the artist has filled the spaces on the page with head studies, two with the page rotated 90 degrees. The lips and nose of a fourth head is below the horse’s nose. The verso of the sheet is almost entirely filled with studies, in a similar manner to two of the sheets that have appeared on the market.^[13] The two putti, one playing a drum and one with a trumpet, were drawn first, with the three head studies filled in behind in the spare spaces. The putti’s heads were removed when the page was cut down by about 16 x 10 mm, based on the typical dimensions of the other known sketchbook pages (c. 290 x 210 mm).