Inscribed on verso, probably by Taddeo, in pen and brown ink, "la prefettura il lume a man ma[n]cha / il basto[ne] del ducha pier louigi il lume / a man ma[n]cha / la legazione del cardinale farnese / in alemagna magna ed il capita[no] generale / ...del ducha ottavio / prefettura del duc...[cut off by edge of paper] / l'abito del prefeto...[cut off] / il bastone del general...[cut off] / il sposalizio del ducha / il sposalizio del duch /" ; at lower left in another direction, "17 / 20"; on added strip, in pen and brown ink, "di Taddeo Zuccaro.; D. / 31; 4.3".
Watermark: Unidentified coat of arms, with animal inside, centered on chain line.
The studies on both sides of the sheet are for frescoes in the Sala dei Fatti Farnesiani (or Room of the Farnese Deeds) on the piano nobile at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. The frescoes for that room were designed by Taddeo around 1562-63 and executed in the summer of 1563. The two verso studies are close to the final paintings, whereas the recto features a larger and more elaborate composition than in the corresponding fresco. The latter fresco composition has been simplified by omitting some of the components of the Morgan sketch, such as the standing onlookers at the far left and the altar to the right of the window. In the fresco, as John Gere noted, the seated figures at left and the principal figures on the dais run together to form a continuous band.1
Until a late stage, Taddeo must have envisaged this more extended composition with the additional group of figures in the left foreground, as is demonstrated by the squared modello in the Louvre, which corresponds to the Morgan sketch and not to the fresco.2 The Morgan recto is not a rough, preliminary sketch like those on the verso, but a compositional draft for the modello in the Louvre, to which it corresponds exactly. Copies after the modello are now at the Morgan, the Louvre, the Uffizi and in a private collection in Belgium.3 Another drawing in the Uffizi studies the mace bearer who appears in the left foreground of the Morgan study, but not in the final fresco.4
Footnotes:
- Gere 1969, 181.
- Louvre, Paris, inv. RF 73; Gere 1969, 181.
- Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. I, 23; Louvre, Paris, inv. 10308; Uffizi, Florence, inv. 435S.
- Uffizi, Florence, inv. 782S; Gere 1969, 143, no. 40.
Selected references: New York 1965-66, no. 136; Houston 1966, no. 57; London and elsewhere 1968, no. 116; Middletown 1969, no. 15; Paris 1969, 37-38, no. 35; Gere 1969, 113, 180-81, no. 149; Gere 1970, 127, no. 5; Washington and New York 1973-74, 10-11, no. 7; Fellows Report, 1976, 187-88; Faldi 1981, 52, 56, 58; Milwaukee 1989-90, 136-41, no. 38; Acidini Luchinat 1998-99, 1: 191-92; Scorza 2016, 21-22.
Jacob Bean and Felice Stampfle, Drawings from New York Collections, I, The Italian Renaissance, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1965-1966, no. 136.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Seventeenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1972-1974. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1976, p. 187-188.
J.A. Gere, "The Lawrence-Phillipp-Rosenbach 'Zucarro Album.'"
Master Drawings, VIII, 1970, 127, no. 5, repr.
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. 7.
Both the recto and verso of this sheet are for frescoes in the Sala dei Fasti Farnesiani in Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola.
Gibson, William, 1644 or 1645-1702, former owner.
Richardson, Jonathan, 1665-1745, former owner.
Dimsdale, Thomas, 1758-1823, former owner.
Lawrence, Thomas, Sir, 1769-1830, former owner.
Woodburn, Samuel, 1785 or 1786-1853, former owner.
Phillips, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872, former owner.
Fenwick, Thomas FitzRoy Phillipps, 1856-1938, former owner.
Rosenbach, A. S. W. (Abraham Simon Wolf), 1876-1952, former owner.
Scholz, János, former owner.