European Drawings - 1, Catalogue of the Collections

9 Study for a Triton

Blowing a Conch Shell

r

Detail of Arm

v

Black and white chalk on blue paper (recto); black chalk
(verso); H: 40.7 cm (16 in.); W: 24. i cm (9^2 in.)
84.06.48
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: (Recto) at bottom right
corner, inscribed 25 in black ink; (verso) collection mark
of Sir Bruce Ingram (L. i4O5a); inscribed 32 followed by
a third number in graphite.
PROVENANCE: Francesco Angeloni, Rome; Pierre Mig-
nard, Rome and Paris; Pierre Crozat, Paris; Sir Bruce In-
gram, Chesham, Buckinghamshire; Carl Winter, Lon-
don; art market, London.
EXHIBITIONS: Old Master Drawings from the Ingram Col-
lection, Colnaghi, London, 1952, no. 29. Artists in iyth
Century Rome, Wildenstein Gallery, London, June-July
1955 , no. 24. Drawings from the Ingram Collection, Fitz-
william Museum, Cambridge, 1955-1956. Mostra del
Carracci, Disegni, Palazzo dellArchiginnasio, Bologna,
September-October 1956, no. 195 (catalogue by D. Ma-
hon). Exhibition ofiyth Century Italian Drawings, Fitzwil-
liam Museum, Cambridge, June-August 1959, no. 21.
Italian i6th Century Drawings from British Private Collec-
tions, Scottish Arts Council, Edinburgh Festival Society,
August-September 1969, no. 22 (catalogue by Y. Tan
Bunzletal.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Mahon, "Eclecticism and the Car-
racci: Further Reflections on the Validity of a Label,"
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953), p.
337; idem, Mostra del Carracci, Disegni, 2nd edn. (Bo-
logna, 1963), pp. i35ff.;J. R. Martin, The Farnese Gallery
(Princeton, 1965), pp. 214, 260; J. Bean, 'A Rediscov-
ered Annibale Carracci Drawing for the Farnese Gal-
lery," Master Drawings 8, no. 4 (1970), pp. 390-391; M.
Levey, National Gallery Catalogues—The Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Century Italian Schools (London, 1971), p. 60;
P.-J. Mariette, Description de la collection Crozat, 2nd edn.
(Geneva, 1973), p. 50, no. 465 (description refers either
to the Museum's drawing or to one in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York; see below); P. J. Cooney and
G. Malafarina, L'opera completa di Annibale Carracci
(Milan, 1976), no. IO4RI (Museum's drawing is incor-
rectly cited as belonging to the Metropolitan Museum of
Art); J. Bean, i?th Century Italian Drawings in the Metro-
politan Museum of Art (New York, 1979), p. 73;M. Cazort

and C. Johnston, Bolognese Drawings in North American

Collections 1500-1800, exh. cat., National Gallery of

Canada, Ottawa, 1982, p. 72, no. 31.

ANNIBALE AND AGOSTINO CARRACCI BEGAN WORK

on the fresco decoration of the Galleria Farnese in Rome

in 1597. Agostino was responsible for designing and

painting the so-called Galatea, now recognized as Thetis

Borne to the Wedding Chamber ofPeleus. His cartoon for it

is in the National Gallery, London (inv. 148; Martin 1965,

no. 82, fig. 194). As Mahon has shown (1953, p. 337),

Annibale intervened between the creation of the cartoon

and the execution of the fresco, composing a figure of

truly Baroque character. This newly designed figure was

incorporated into the final fresco by Agostino when he

painted it before departing Rome in 1600.

The Getty Museum's drawing was once part of a

much larger sheet that also contained the study of a triton

now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

(Bean 1970, pp. 390-391). The verso has a small frag-

ment of the arm of the triton in New York. Considering

the two drawings and the fresco in sequence, it appears

that the triton in the New York drawing was made first,

followed by the Getty Museum's study, as the latter is

closer to the final solution. Both drawings owe a generic

debt to the triton in Raphael's Galatea (Rome, Villa

Farnesina).

CARRACCI • ITALIAN SCHOOL 37