Radocsay Dénes - Gerevich Lászlóné szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 25. (Budapest,1964)

JAFFÉ, MICHAEL: Some Pen Drawings of Landscape with Figures by Annibale Carracci

OF LANDSCAPE SOME PEN DRAWINGS WITH FIGURES BY ANNIBALE CARRACCI In 1960 Dr. Iván Fenyő was able to bring to the notice of scholars an important group of figure drawings by Annibale Carracci. These had lain virtually unknown in the Museum of Fine Arts at Budapest.

1 It is now possible to bring forward from this same cabinet a further group of three drawings, all showing landscape with figures, all from the Esterházy collection, and all penned by Annibale in the last years of the sixteenth century.

2 Dr. Fenyő was well aware, when he kindly brought these drawings to my attention in 1963, that they were by the same hand: but he had been misled very understandably into thinking they were by Domenichino. The one showing the « Rest on the Flight into Egypt »

3 is inscribed by an old, probably eighteenth century hand « domenichin » (Fig. 59) ; and it was etched by Louis Garreau,

4 and published in Paris in 1788 as the work of Lodovico's pupil, Domenichino. On the strength of Garreau'

s ascription a small painting (Fig. 60) corresponding rather closely to the composition was, until the V. Mostra Biennale d'Arte Antica held at Bologna in 1962, regularly attributed to the young Domenichino.

5 But the immensely assured and mature style of the Budapest drawing confirms now the opinion of Gian Carlo Cavalli in the catalogue of the Bologna exhibition

6 that the painting was pace Garreau et al. the work of Annibale near the end of the sixteenth century. The organisation of the landscape was too clear and strong for the still very tentative Domenichino; the figure groups were too securely placed in their setting, and too solidly modelled. The 1 Fenyő, I. : Dessins inconnus des Carracci. Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 17, 1960. pp. 23 — 45. I am grateful to Dr. Fenyő for drawing my attention to the three landscape drawings, and for allowing me to publish them here. His own article included also figure drawings attributable to Lodovico Carracci. I am grateful also to Mr. Denis Mahon for the opportunity to discuss with him, on the basis of photographs, the attribution and dating of aU six Annibale landscape drawings with which the present article deals. 2 Inv. nos. 2309, 2284, 2319. 3 Inv. no. 2309. Pen and brown ink on white paper, 270x394 mm. Collections: A.C. de Poggi (L. 617); N. Esterházy (L. 1965). 4 Weigel, no. 2.28. Later copied by Duvilliers for L a n d o n, CP. : Vie des peintres. Paris, 1803. pl. CXLIX, again as «Dominiquin». 5 E.g. by the catalogue of Italian Art and Britain (Royal Academy) London, 1960. no. 396; and B o r e a, E. : Aspetti del Domenichino paesista. Paragone 10, 1960. p. 10, fig. 12. 6 Catalogue of LTdeale classico del Seicento in Italia e la pittura di paesaggio. Bologna, 1962. no. 1, illus., oil on canvas, 40.5x47 cm. Collections:? Mrs. Morland (British Institution 1819, as Domenichino); Mr. Farrer (1855); Thomas Baring; 1st Earl of Northbrook (1875); Messrs P. & D. Colnaghi (1937); Sir Thomas Barlow; Mrs. T.G. Winter (1940).