Italian School

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Italian School
16th century
Moses Striking the Rock
Pen and brown ink and wash, with opaque white, on brown washed paper. Losses at upper right (shrubs on hill), lower right (shoulder of Moses), lower left (bundle being lifted) as well as scattered smaller losses. Laid down on fragment of a mount.
10 1/4 x 15 11/16 inches (261 x 398 mm)
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
IV, 19

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Notes: 

Watermark: figure on a horse with a banner, in a circle; similar to Briquet nos. 47-49.
Formerly attributed to Baldassare Perruzzi, 1481-1536.

Inscription: 

Inscribed on mount, just beneath drawing, at center, in pen and brown ink, Polidoro; on verso of mount, at upper right, in pen and brown ink (cropped by upper edge), sale number in 1753 Gerhard Jabach sale, n 158; at upper left, in pen and brown ink, N 25. - polidoo O; beneath this, in pen and ink an almost illegible, cancelled inscription, thought by Py to be by Gerhard Michael Jabach (the grandson of Everhard), perhaps reading, GMJababh (?); at center of mount, in red chalk, indication of format (Lugt 960a), fo.; followed by Everhard Jabach's paraphe in black chalk (variant of Lugt 2959).

Provenance: 
Everhard Jabach (1618-1695), Paris (his inventory folio 45 no. 61 "Polidoro da Caravaggio - Le frappement de roche [sic] par Moïse lavé et haussé, à la plume jaune rougeâtre sur papier bistré brun, long de 17 1/2 et haut de 12 1/3 pouces, 12 livres 10 sols" and Lugt 2959 and 960a); by descent to Gerhard Michael Jabach (his sale, Amsterdam, 16 October 1753, lot 158, to Testas); P. Testas (his sale, Amsterdam, 29 March 1757, lot 9 "Daar Moses het Water uit de rots voortbrengt op bruin Papier met wit gehoogt, door Polidor de Caravagio" 4 fl. 5 to Geld); perhaps Jean-Denis Lempereur (1701-1779), Paris (his sale, Paris, 24 May 1773, lot 133, framed drawing, "Un dessin à la plume et au bistre, rehaussé de blanc, représentant dans une seule composition, le frappement du rocher, la mâne et la construction du tabernacle: dessin capital"; to Boileau); Louis François de Bourbon, Prince de Conti (1717-1776) (his sale, Paris, 8 April 1777, lot 947, to Desmarets); Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), London (Lugt 2364); Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.
Associated names: 

Peruzzi, Baldassarre, 1481-1536, Formerly attributed to.
Jabach, Everhard, 1618-1695, former owner.
Jabach, Gerhard Michael, former owner.
Testas de Jonge, Pieter, 1702-1784, former owner.
Lempereur, Jean-Denis, 1701-1779, former owner.
Conti, Prince de, former owner.
Reynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723-1792, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Charles Fairfax Murray, Collection of Drawings by the Old Masters formed by C. Fairfax Murray (J. Pierpont Morgan Collection), 4 vols, London 1905-1912, vol. 4, no. 19, repr. (Polidoro da Caravaggio).
Frits Lugt, Musée du Louvre. Inv. general des dessins des écoles du nord. Ecole flamande, Paris, 1949, vol. 2, p. 21, no. 1037.
Christoph Luitpold Frommel, “Baldassare Peruzzi als Maler und Zeichner,” Beiheft zum Römischen Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 11, 1967/68, p. 108, no. 67, repr. pl. XLIIa. (Peruzzi).
Alessandro Marabottini, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Rome, 1969, p. 350.
Lanfranco Ravelli, Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio, Bergamo 1978, p. 94, no. 3, repr. Michelangelo and his World with Drawings from the British Museum, exh. pamphlet, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1979, no. IV, 9.
Richard-Raymond Alasko with a further essay by Lawrence S. Lowic, Religious Narrative in 16th Century Rome, exh. cat., Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, 1983, p. 70, no. 30, repr. p. 50 (Baldessare Peruzzi; formerly attributed to Polidoro da Caravaggio).
J. A. Gere, "Review of Lanfranco Ravelli, Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio, Bergamo, 1978," Master Drawings 23-24, 1985-86, p. 63.
J. A. Gere, Drawings by Raphael and his Circle from British and North American Collections, exh. cat., The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1987, pp. 278-79, no. 90, repr.
Mahonri Sharp Young, "Raphael at the Morgan," Apollo, Jan. 1988, p. 61, fig. 8. Zeichnungen aus der Toskana. Das Zeitalter Michelangelos, Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken, 1997, pp. 198-199, 303, no. 64, repr. in color.
Kunst des Sammelns. Das Praunsche Kabinett. Meisterwerke von Dürer bis Carracci, exh. cat., Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 1994, pp. 262-263, no. 109, repr.
Bernadette Py, Everhard Jabach Collectioneur (1618-1695): les dessins de l'inventaire de 1695, Paris, 2001, p. 40, no. 31.
Linda Wolk-Simon, "Review: Perino del Vaga, tra Raffaello e Michelangelo, Mantua, 2001," Master Drawings 41, no. 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 48-49, fig. 1 (unidentified sixteenth-century Italian artist; possibly belongs to group of drawings for a cycle of Moses, two examples of which are by Perino).

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