Giorgio Vasari

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Giorgio Vasari
1511-1574
Design for the Decoration of a Loggia with Grotesques
1553
Pen and brown ink and wash, over black chalk, and stylus indentations, on paper.
2 3/4 x 11 1/8 inches (69 x 282 mm)
Gift of Janos Scholz.
1984.61:1
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 framed tablets, in pen and brown ink, "pisces; libra; cancer"; and below the figures, "BAC / CV[S]; VERT / VNN[US]". On a repair on verso, in pen and black ink, "Iniscadi(?)".

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, donor.

Bibliography: 

Selected references: Vitzthum 1966, 64; Thiem 1968, 150; Notre Dame and Birmingham 1970, 83-84, no. D32; Washington and New York 1973-74, no. 28; Ragghianti Collobi 1976, 62; Fellows Report 1989, 386; New Haven 1994, 27, no. 25; Prague 1996, 231; Corti 1996, 161; Fairbrain 1998, 2: 518; Boston and Florence 2003-04, 195, 421-24, no. 29e; Gregory 2012, 372; Baroni 2012, 503; Härb 2015, 317-319, no. 161e.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twenty-First Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984-1986. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1989, p. 386.
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, no. 28, repr.

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