Early Australian + International Art - 1

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Museo Cartaceo of Cassiano Dal Pozzo
Two drawings from The Museo Cartaceo of Cassiano Dal Pozzo (1588 – 1637)

Impeccable provenance including Pope Clement XI, King George III and many prominent collectors


The left-hand drawing is Italian, Rome, late 16th/early 17th century: Study of a classical relief sculpture of a priest holding a cornucopia.
Pen and brown ink with grey wash over black chalk
laid down within double ink mounting lines, and again laid down

Inscribed on the old mount 'Roma in Aedibus Verospis’ indicating that the depiction is of a relief in the Palazzo Verospi in the Via del Corso in Rome. The palace was stripped of its ancient art in the early 19th century after it was sold to the Banco Marignoli for offices​

The right hand drawing is of the Head of the same relief 
Black chalk & grey wash, with traces of old inventory number no. 467
Total sheet size 380 x 480 mm

Price: $7,800 incl GST

Provenance: 
  • commissioned by Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588–1637) for his ‘Museo Cartaceo’ (Paper Museum) and kept in the library of his palazzo, via dei Chiavari, Rome
  • transferred (with the entire Dal Pozzo collections) by fidecommesso (i.e. to be held in perpetual trust) to his younger brother Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (1606–1689) 
  • by inheritance to his second son, Gabriele dal Pozzo (d. 1695) 
  • by inheritance to his widow (born Anna Teresa Benzoni, after her remarriage in 1697 the Marchesa Lancellotti de’Ginnetti; d. 1736), 
  • held in custody for their son, Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo (d. 1740) 
  • within the Dal Pozzo library sold in 1703 to Pope Clement XI for the Vatican library
  • transferred, as part of the Museo Cartaceo, in January 1714 to the Pope’s nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692–1779), and kept in his palazzo ‘alle Quattro Fontane’ in Rome 
  • sold in 1762 to James Adam as agent for the British Royal Librarian Richard Dalton 
  • King George III of England, kept in Buckingham House 
  • among sheets of the ‘Museo Cartaceo’ appropriated by Richard Dalton (1715–1791) during a reorganisation of the drawings circa 1786–1788 
  • Dalton’s deceased estate sale by Greenwood’s auction house, London, 
     11–19 May 1791(Lugt, Répertoire, 4730)
  • John MacGowan (d. 1803), lawyer and antiquary of Edinburgh
  • his deceased sale by the auctioneer Thomas Philipe, London, 26 January–4 February 1804 (Lugt, Répertoire, 6733)
  • Charles Townley (1737–1805) 
  • John Townley (1803–1876) 
  • his sale by Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, London, 10–11 May 1865, part lot 406 (Lugt, Répertoire, 28512) purchased by Thorpe (£5.5s) 
  • acquired by 1871 by Sir William Stirling Maxwell of Pollok (1818–1878) and bound in an album entitled ‘Drawings by Italian Old Masters. Sculpture’ 
  • by descent within the Maxwell family 
  • consigned for sale by Phillips, Son & Neale, ‘Old Master Drawings’, London, 12 December 1990, where dispersed as lots 219–374. This work was lot 228 
  • Private Collection, purchased from above. Trinidad to Oman to Adelaide, Australia 
  • Peter Walker, Adelaide, Australia
​
Publications:
Included in the catalogue raisonne of the Museo Cartaceo, The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, published by Harvey Miller & the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, 1998-2016.
Similar Sales:
  1. A similar drawing, with the same Provenance, and being lot 222 in the 1990 Phillips sale (see above) sold at Sotheby’s, London, 7th July 2011, lot 62 (as Attributed to Pietro Testa) for £27,500 (inc. buyers premium) against an estimate of £10,000-£15,000. See http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2011/old-master-british-drawings-sale-l11040/lot.62.html
  2. A similar drawing, with the same Provenance and being lot 269 in the 1990 Phillips sale was for sale by Robert Halwas, London in 2015 for £29,000. The work was attributed to Leonardi.​
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Picture
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