Giorgio Vasari

Download image: 
Giorgio Vasari
1511-1574
Design for a Panel with a Seated Figure of Mercury
1553
Pen and brown ink and wash, over black chalk, on laid paper.
3 7/16 x 2 7/16 inches (88 x 62 mm)
Gift of Janos Scholz.
1984.62:1
Notes: 

Watermark: none.
One of six studies for a vaulted ceiling decoration. Although the specific project has not yet been identified, it has been tentatively related to a commission for the decoration of a loggia that Vasari received on 14 April 1545 from Don Pietro Tolledo, Viceroy of Naples.

Inscription: 

Inscribed in upper panel, at center, in pen and brown ink, by the artist, "AQVA"; in lower panel, "MERCVRIVS".; on verso, in graphite, by a modern hand,"G Vasari / Genise 1965".

Provenance: 
Moscardo collection, Verona, which passed to the Marquis de Calceolari (no mark; see Lugt S. 2990a-g); Armand François Louis de Mestral de St. Saphorin (1738-1805), Switzerland and Vienna; Galerie Reichlin, Lausanne; André Marmier, Geneva; from whom purchased in 1965 by János Scholz (1903-1993), New York (no mark; see Lugt S. 2933b).
Associated names: 

Moscardo family, former owner.
Calceolari, marquis de, former owner.
Saint-Saphorin, Armand-François-Louis de Mestral de, 1738-1805, former owner.
Marmier, André, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Selected references: Vitzthum 1966, 64; Thiem 1968, 150; London 1968, no. 105; Notre Dame and Birmingham 1970, 83-84, no. D34; Washington and New York 1973-74, no. 28; Ragghianti Collobi 1976, 62; Davis 1979, 207, 209; Fellows Report 1989, 386; New Haven 1994, 27, no. 25; Prague 1996, 231; Fairbrain 1998, 2: 518; Boston and Florence 2003-04, 195, 421-24, no. 29a; Gregory 2012, 372; Härb 2015, 317-319, no. 161a.
Oberhuber, Konrad, and Dean Walker. Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings From the Collection of János Scholz. Washington, D.C. : National Gallery of Art ; New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973, 28, repr
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twenty-First Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984-1986. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1989, p. 386.

Artist page: 
School: 
Century: 
Classification: 
Department: