Moretto da Brescia

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Moretto da Brescia
1498?-1554
St. Nicholas Presents Children to the Virgin and Child
1539
Black chalk, pen and brown ink, white opaque watercolor, on blue paper; laid down on Yarmouth mount.
13 1/8 x 11 1/2 inches (333 x 291 mm)
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
I, 72
Notes: 

Watermark: none visible through lining.
The drawing may be a study for or copy after the altarpiece "St. Nicholas of Bari Presenting Pupils of Galeazzo Rovelli to the Virgin and Child" painted for the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Brescia in 1539, now in the Pinacoteca Civica Tosio-Martinengo, Brescia.

Inscription: 

Inscribed at lower right, in pen and gray-brown ink, "Aless. Buonvicino da / Brescia 1539"; on verso of mount, in pen and brown ink, "Aless: Buentinno (cancelled)"; beneath this, in pen and brown ink, possibly by the Earl of Yarmouth, "Alessandro Buonvicino - detto Moretto da Brescia / Disciple of Titian"; in graphite, inserted before the word "Disciple, best"; at lower right, in graphite, "£2.12.6".

Provenance: 
Robert Paston, 1st Earl of Yarmouth (1631-1683; his mount), Oxnead Hall, Norfolk; George Guy Greville, 4th Earl of Warwick (1818-1893), Warwick Castle (Lugt 2600); (his sale, London, Christie's, 21 May 1896, lot 237, as Moretto "The Madonna and Child, with a bishop attended by four boys - pen and ink and black chalk, heightened with white, on greenish paper, 11 1/2 in. by 13 in. From the Collection of the Bishop of Arezzo"); bought by Murray for £90.0.0; 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: 

Yarmouth, Robert Paston, Earl of, 1631-1683, former owner.
Warwick, George Guy Greville, Earl of, 1818-1893, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Morgan, J. P. (John Pierpont), 1867-1943, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Rhoda Eitel-Porter and and John Marciari, Italian Renaissance Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2019, no. 64.
Selected references: Fairfax Murray 1905-12, 1: no. 72; Begni Redona 1988, under no. 66; Brescia 1988, no. 3b; Lucchesi Ragni and Stradiotti 2004, 156; Bona Castellotti and Lucchesi Ragni 2014, 237; New Haven 2018, 209.

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