Cesare da Sesto | Study for St. Sebastian, a Nude Female Figure Seen from Behind, and a Reclining Man Below. Verso: A Nude Female Figure Holding a Shield and Helmet; below, a Smaller Sketch of the Same Figure in a Different Position; a Study for Grotesques with a Seated Captive | Drawings Online

Cesare da Sesto

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Cesare da Sesto

1477-1523

Study for St. Sebastian, a Nude Female Figure Seen from Behind, and a Reclining Man Below. Verso: A Nude Female Figure Holding a Shield and Helmet; below, a Smaller Sketch of the Same Figure in a Different Position; a Study for Grotesques with a Seated Captive

ca. 1508-1512

Pen and dark brown ink over black chalk, on laid paper; red chalk; verso: Pen and brown ink, over black chalk.

7 3/8 x 5 3/8 inches (186 x 138 mm, max dimensions)

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

II, 29 (recto) - II, 30 (verso

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Inscription:

Inscribed at upper right, partially effaced, in pen and brown ink, 3; inscribed at upper left corner in black chalk, 3. Verso: Inscribed at upper left in black chalk, 4.

Provenance:

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.

Bibliography:

Rhoda Eitel-Porter and and John Marciari, Italian Renaissance Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2019, no. 36.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, II, 29-30.
Carminati, Marco. Cesare da Sesto, 1477-1523. Milan : Jandi Sapi, 1994, p. 247-48, D22-23, repr.

Notes:

One of thirty four sixteenth-century Italian drawings formerly mounted in a nineteenth-century album, the Cesare da Sesto Album.
According to Carminati, nude female figure on recto may derive from Raphael (cf. Raphael, The Transfiguration, 1518-1520, Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome). Cf. Cesare da Sesto, Cavalier armé luttant contre un dragon; femme agenouillée INV 6782, Verso.

Associated names:

Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.

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