European Drawings 2: Catalogue of the Collections

FRANÇOIS STELLA

1563-160 5

75 View of Tivoli

Black chalk, pen and brown ink, and gray and brown
wash; H: 26.9 cm (loVsin.); W: 41.3 cm (i6V 4 m.)
86.GG.2 8
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: (Recto) on mount, at bot-
tom, inscribed Paul Brill in brown ink; (verso) collection
mark AW (close to L. 202).
PROVENANCE: Sir Anthony Westcombe(?), England; Sir
William Forbes, Bt., Scotland; by descent to his heirs
(sale, Christie's, London, April 10, 1985, lot 130); art
market, Paris.
EXHIBITIONS: Old Master and XIXth Century Painting and
Drawings, Galerie delà Scala, Paris, November 1985, no.
32.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. Chômer, Maîtres français 1550-1800:
Dessins de la donation Mathias Polakovits à l'Ecole des Beaux-
Arts, exh. cat. (Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1989), p. 56,
under no. 9.

THIS DRAWING WAS MADE DURING A VISIT BY STELLA

to Tivoli with the Jesuit architect Etienne Martellange.

The two artists visited Italy in 1586-87 and produced a

series of drawings of Rome and its environs during their

stay.^1 Several other sheets by them with various views of

Tivoli are dated by Martellange to 1587, and it is therefore

probable that this is the date of the Museum's drawing.

Among Stella's other Tivoli views, the closest in style is

one from that year showing the great waterfall there

(Louvre inv. 32866). The two sheets share an animated

use of line, a breadth in the application of wash, and a

somewhat idiosyncratically expressive treatment of rock

formations.

i. J. Vallery-Radot, "Le séjour de Martellange à Rome en 1586

et 1587 et ses dessins de jeunesse," Revue du Louvre 12, no. 5

(1962), pp. 205-16.

ISO FRENCH SCHOOL • F. STELLA