This drawing – along with five others in the Morgan’s collection – relates to Vasari’s frescoes for Bindo Altoviti’s villa in Rome, on which Vasari was working in 1553.1 At that time, Vasari was also engaged with fresco decorations for Altoviti’s palazzo across the river as well as those for the Villa Giulia, Rome, for Pope Paul III.2 The Villa Altoviti’s frescoes were destroyed around 1864 and the general appearance of the loggia is unrecorded. However, a series of engravings by Tommaso Piroli, published in 1807, records the appearance of nine deities and personifications of the four seasons from the fresco cycle.3 Four of the Morgan sketches relate to the series of deities; three of them (Mercury, Luna, and Sol) correspond exactly, the fourth (Saturn) varies in pose from the engraved figure.4 There are thirteen further sketches relating to this commission in the Moravská Gallery, Brno, one of which is a variant of the figure of Saturn.5 Most likely, the Morgan sketches are fragments of a larger ceiling design that was cut up, possibly by Vasari himself.
Footnotes:
- Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. 1984.61.1; 1984.61.2; 1984.62.1; 1984.62.2; 1984.64.1; 1984.64.2.
- Härb 2015, 317. Altoviti’s palazzo was demolished in 1888, though its frescoes representing the twelve months, two river gods, and a Tribute to Ceres, were transferred to the Palazzo Venezia, Rome.
- Davis 1979, figs. 1-13.
- Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. 1984.62.1; 1984.62.2; 1984.64.1; 1984.64.2.
- Härb 2015, 320-321, no. 162.
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.
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".
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.
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.