Cesare da Sesto

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Cesare da Sesto

1477-1523

Studies of Male and Female Figure From Behind. Verso: Studies of Two Figures from Front (traced from recto), a Head, Putti and Grotesque Ornament

ca. 1508-1512

Pen and brown ink, Male figure, pen and brown ink over red chalk on laid paper; verso: pen and brown-black ink, inscribed lines.

7 5/8 x 5 5/16 inches (194 x 135 mm)

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

II, 31 (recto) - II, 32 (verso

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Notes:

One of thirty four sixteenth-century Italian drawings formerly mounted in a nineteenth-century album, the Cesare da Sesto Album.
Recto: Cf. Cesare da Sesto, A Satyr Embracing a Nymph; a Running Figure, pen and brown ink with red chalk, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan (Cod. F. 265 inf. 83).

Inscription:

Inscribed at upper right, in pen and brown ink, "Afare azuro alume salegenie (?)/et affiro [zaffiro?] forte"; this probably alludes to a formula for mixing color. Above, inscribed at upper right in pen and brown ink, "5". Verso: Inscribed at upper right, in pen and brown ink, "6".
Watermark: Possibly an oval or building.

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.

Watermark:

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Associated names:

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

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, 31-32.
Carminati, Marco. Cesare da Sesto, 1477-1523. Milan : Jandi Sapi, 1994, p. 248-49, D24-25, repr.

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