Jacques Callot

Watermark: none.
This sheet and 1972.15 contain small scale sketches of rounded figures of small stature engaged in a range of activities. Here we see seven relatively clearly drawn figures and two less defined sketches. In the top range starting from the left, a figure scrapes a gridiron, the second one poses with his arms akimbo, and a third, a figure in a billed hat seems to hold up a musical instrument. Below, a hunchbacked figure perhaps plays an instrument, a pear-shaped figure strikes two poses dancing, and a faint sketch shows a figure in profile. The small, rounded figure types seen on these two sheets are closer to those in Callot's series of Gobbi, or Hunchbacks (1616), although none is an exact match.
There are around twenty sheets that have been identified from a sketchbook Callot used in Florence circa 1616-17. Several of those in American collections emerged on the market in England in the 1940s and 1950s. Some of these, including the Morgan's two sheets, and sheets in the Yale University Art Gallery and the Art Institute of Chicago, bear a mark of three circles and a dot at the lower center of the page. The sheet in Chicago bears a similar inscription on verso. The Chicago and Yale sheets contain figures that are more jaunty and elongated, closer to those in the Balli di Sfessania series.
The cryptic mark of three circles has yet to be decisively connected to a collector, dealer, or patron. The mark occurs in this same form, three circles followed by a period, on sheets by Callot and Stefano della Bella. A similar mark has recently been associated with drawings belonging to the family of Cesare Dandini, who assembled 5000 drawings into 20 albums. Among these sheets were 200 by other artists. The mark connected with these sheets, however, typically consists of a larger number of circles without a terminal dot. It is believed that the code on the Callot drawings is likely the mark of a different dealer or collector. Rhea Blok has also noted a Florentine drawing that came up for sale in 1999 bearing a single circle and dash, which was considered a dealer's price code.