Angel Appearing to Saint Roch, Seated in a Landscape. Verso: Faint Study of a Man Facing Left and Looking Upward and Further Figures Kneeling in Foreground
Gift of Janos Scholz.
According to legend, the fourteenth-century Saint Roch left his native town of Montpellier in France on a pilgrimage to Rome, stopping en route to help those afflicted with the plague and effecting several miraculous cures. About three years later on his way north, he himself contracted the plague and retired into a forest outside Piacenza, where he was nourished by a dog who brought him bread from nearby homes. While still in the forest an angel appeared to Saint Roch and miraculously cured him, the moment depicted here.
While probably by an artist of the Lombard school, this drawing has resisted attempts to provide a clear attribution. Bernardino Luino was the intended reference of the drawing’s old attribution to one “Luino the Elder,” though the study is not by him. It was later published several times as by Giulio Campi, an attribution which is likewise no longer accepted, though the artist may well have been from his circle.
Gelozzi, Count, former owner.
Johann Georg, Prince of Saxony, 1869-1938, former owner.
Weitzner, Julius, -1986, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Nineteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1978-1980. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, p. 182.
Italienische Meisterzeichnungen vom 14. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert aus amerikanischem Besitz : Die Sammlung Janos Scholz, New York. Hamburg : H. Christians, 1963
Oberhuber, Konrad, and Dean Walker. Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings From the Collection of Janos Scholz. Washington, D.C. : National Gallery of Art ; New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1973, no. 82, repr. (includes previous bibliography and exhibitions).
Venetian Drawings from the Collection of Janos Scholz. Montgomery, Ala. : Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, 1976, no. 51, repr.