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0521551335 int 1 a CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 9 : 33
THE DISPERSAL AND FORMATION OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE’S COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS 35painting is recorded as having been burned before 1642 ), can be
excluded, especially as the dimensions of the French example were
162 × 218 cm as opposed to the 171 × 249 cm of that in the Royal
Academy. Passavant, 1836 ,p. 76 , also says that the Royal Academy
cartoon – which he did not believe to be autograph – was acquired
from Casa Vecchietti. It is now commonly attributed to Rosso,
but that attribution is hard to sustain. The drawing for theLedato
which Woodburn refers cannot securely be identified. It might be
an error for the copy after theNight, here Cat. 83 ,orthe untraced
drawing 1836 - 35.
67. Royal Academy, Lawrence letter-books, IV/ 86. There is
some doubt about the provenance of theCleansing of the Temple,
now in the National Gallery. Recorded in the Borghese Collec-
tion in the mid-seventeenth century, it remained there until the
end of the eighteenth century, when it was acquired by Commis-
saire Reboul. It was bought from him by Woodburn. In his letter
to Lawrence of 13 March 1823 ,Woodburn stated that he had sold
the Venusti to Mr. Lock (i.e., William Lock the Younger), but in
Lawrence’s reply to Woodburn’s letter, of late March or early April
1823 (Williams, 1831 , II, pp. 416 – 18 , misdated to 1825 )heremarks
of the drawings acquired by Woodburn from Wicar: “Mr. D. [his
usual way of referring to Dimsdale] will be delighted to possess the
studies for his own Marcello Venusti, which so exceedingly add
to the value of that beautiful work.” Whether a different paint-
ing is in question, or whether Lawrence or Woodburn made a
slip of the pen, is uncertain. After Dimsdale’s death, Lawrence
no doubt acquired the painting from his estate, via Woodburn.
After Lawrence’s death, the painting returned to Woodburn, who
is referred to as owning it in theAthenaeum’s review of the exhibi-
tion of Michelangelo’s drawings on 16 July 1836 .Itwas presumably
sold by Woodburn to the Duke of Hamilton, from whose collection
it was bought by the National Gallery in 1885.
68. Woodburn, 1836 a,p. 4 .Lawrence’s feelings about Dimsdale
were expressed in a jocular – but telling – way to Woodburn in
a letter of 27 January 1823 (Williams, 1831 , II, p. 287 :“Ihave
never thought with common Christian charity of Mr. D. since the
dreadful moment when I first saw my long dreamt of treasure [a
drawing Lawrence believed to be by Raphael] of thePeste[i.e., the
Plague], in his possession. What will be his end I know not; but
certainly it will not be a natural death. I never see him, determining
that the certain retribution may be the work of other hands, my
own being as yet bloodless and pure.”).
69. Woodburn, 1836 a,p. 4.
70. J. Fisher,187 9,p. 11.
71. Wicar worked through an intermediary. A list of the Raphael
drawings in Fedi’s possession, all of them now in Lille, was given by
Longhena,182 9,pp. 718 – 19 ,asactual, evidently unaware they had
been re-possessed by Wicar five years before. Longhena similarly
records (pp. 726 – 7 ), as in Ottley’s collection, a group of drawings
that had passed to Lawrence in 1823 .Itisworth noting that since
Fedi presumably did not object to Longhena’s publishing the details
of his group of Raphael drawings, he can have felt no disquiet about
them; this suggests that, although he may have obtained them by
subterfuge, he felt that he had a right to them. He seems to have
served in some capacity with Wicar on the Napoleonic commis-
sions, and the “theft” may have been the result of a friendship
soured, or a deal that went wrong.
72. Established by Nesselrath, 1983 ; see the essay by F. Lemerle
in Brejon de Lavergn ́ee, 1997 ,pp. 283 – 9.
73. Bell, 1938 ,p. 199 ff.74. Piot, 1863 ,p. 145. The biography of Filippo Buonarroti by
Saitta, 1950 – 1 , makes no mention of this episode.
75. It is unclear whether Ottley and Wicar acquired drawings
from Cavaceppi during his lifetime or from his heirs after his death.
76. Sueur, in Bentini, Loisel Legrand, et al., 1998 ,p. 24.
77. Bentini, 1989 ,p. 46 ; these drawings were in theappartamento
of thepiano nobile. The Este Collection no doubt contained other
drawings by or attributed to Michelangelo either not on display or
on display elsewhere. The Coccapani Collection, much of which
entered Este ownership c. 1650 , containedUn Christo in Croce di
Michel Angelo di lapis nero(ibid., p. 37 )recorded again in an undated
inventory (ibid., p. 40 ); it would be tempting to identify this with
one of the copies of Michelangelo’sCrucified Christmade for Vitto-
ria Colonna (see Cat. 66 )but none of those known to the compiler
bears an Este stamp. Another inventory, of 1751 (ibid., pp. 40 ff.),
records as no. 336 ,Una testa di carbone di Michelangelo con cornice(this
might be BM W 57 ), and no. 412 ,Un Filosofo a lapis nero di Michel
Angelo con cornice.No. 353 ,Un altra testa a lapis rosso di Michel Angelo
suddetto, con cornice logorata, seems however to have been attributed
to Michel Ange da Caravaggio, to whomUna testa a lapis nero,no.
351 ,was certainly given.
78. Joannides, 2002 – 3 a,p. 37.
79. Robinson,187 0,p.xv.
80. Scheller, 1971.
81. Further details in Joannides, 2002 – 3 a,p. 40.
82. Passavant, 1836 ,p. 32. The drawings are W 16 /Corpus 76 and
W 17 /Corpus 77 in the British Museum and Bean 65 in the Musee ́
Bonnat. They had been seen by Lawrence in Rome in 1819 , for
in a letter to Woodburn of March or April 1823 (wrongly placed
among those of 1825 byWilliams, 1831 , II, pp. 416 – 18 )Lawrence
wrote: “I well remembersebastian delpiombo’s letter, respecting
the reception of his pictures, which at Rome I much wished to
secure, together with two, if not three, studies by Michael Angelo,
for the group of Lazarus in that fine picture. I was so instrumental in
urging Mr. Angerstein to buy it, that of course I had thedeepest
interestin looking at those sketches, which so confirmed my
conviction of that figure being entirely his.”
83. Among these in the Ashmolean would be certainly Cats. 3 ,
19 , 29 , and 47 , and probably 4 , 5 , 9 – 12 , 24 , 36 , 37 , 45 ,and 48.
In the British Museum, they would be W 42 /Corpus 316 , and prob-
ably W 34 ,W 36 /Corpus 528 , 57 /Corpus 220 , and the copy W 91.
84. For the former see Calbi, 1986 , fig. 91 a; the latter, unpub-
lished, is in the National Gallery of Scotland, RSA 256.
85. Gere, 1953 ,p. 47.
86. See Joannides, 2002 – 3 a,p. 40 for this calculation.
87. See n. 72.
88. Gere, 1953 ; the copies of the sale catalogues referred to by
Gere as in the Sutton Collection are now in the Print Room of
the British Museum.
89. Cats. 70 and 113.
90. Gere, 1953 ,p. 48.
91. However, see Appendix 1 , Ottley sale of 1804 , lot 269. The
type of numbering found on this drawing is also found on a number
of sheets by Gabbiani in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Lille: see Brejon ́
de Lavergn ́ee, 1997 , nos. 246 – 51 , 252 – 7 , and 259 – 60 .Itisidentified
byPouncey and Gere, 1962 ,no. 224 ,p. 129 ,aspossibly that of
Lamberto Gori, but it seems instead to be that of the Martelli. For
five ex-Martelli drawings owned by Woodburn, offered in his 1804
sale and now in the Prado, see Turner and Joannides, 2003.
92. See Wood, 2003 , passim.