Sigismondo Caula

Born in Modena in 1637, Sigismondo Caula was the preeminent artist of his generation. A painter, sculptor, draftsman, and stuccatore, he trained with the artist Jean Boulanger. He was active primarily in Emiglia Romagna, where he worked with Boulanger on frescoes in the Este residence in Sassuolo and the Palazzo Bentivoglio in Gualtieri. After a brief sojourn in Venice in 1667-70 studying the work of Paolo Veronese and Jacopo Tintoretto, Caula returned to his native Modena where he received commissions for sculpture. In 1671, he collaborated with other pupils of Boulanger on the decoration of the chapel in S. Vincenzo, studies for which survive in the Galleria Estense, in Modena. He executed frescoes in the Duomo (preparatory drawings for which in the Galleria Nazionale, Parma) and other churches in Modena. He received his last commission in 1708 for ceiling decorations in the church of S. Agostino. Caula was appointed official court painter at the Este court. His style fuses the teachings of his master, Boulanger, with pictorial and stylistic elements from Venetian painting of the sixteenth century.
Though numerous paintings by his hand are extant, drawings by Caula are relatively rare. The present sheet compares well in style and technique with other known drapery and figure studies. One such example sharing similar provenance is in the Fondation Custodia in Paris (J. Byam Shaw, The Italian Drawings of the First Lugt Collection, Paris, 1983, no. 405, pls. 456-7). Five further drawings by the artist of similar technique were in the Benno Geiger collection, Vienna (sale, Sotheby's, London, 7-10 December 1920, lots 74-75; Benno Geiger, Handzeichnungen Alter Meister, Vienna, 1946, pls. 58-91). One is now preserved in the British Museum (inv. 1920-12-20-1), another was with P. & D. Colnaghi, London, in 1951, while two were with Paul Prouté, Paris, in 1981. Other similar studies by the artist are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (J. Bean, 17th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979, no. 129) and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris.