A chained slave, seated on armory

Details

Pietro Antonio Novelli (Venice 1729-1804)
A chained slave, seated on armory
with inscription 'Carravaggio' (lower right)
gray and dark gray wash, black ink
17 ¾ x 13 3/8 in. (45 x 33.8 cm)

Provenance

Possibly B. Charbonnier;
Sir Archibald Alison (1792-1867), Glasgow.
with Stanza del Borgo, Milan (Disegni e stampe dal XVI al XIX secolo, 1990); Sotheby's, New York, 9 January 1996, lot 52.

Literature

N. Strasser, Dessins italiens de la Renaissance au siècle des Lumières. Collection Jean Bonna, Geneva, 2010, no. 118, ill.

Exhibited

Paris, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Dessins italiens de la collection Jean Bonna, 2006, no. 30.
Geneva, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Le Choix d'un regard: dessins de la collection Jean Bonna, 2006.

Brought to you by

Furio Rinaldi

frinaldi@christies.com +1 212 636 2328

Lot Essay

This large and exuberantly drawn academy constitutes a peak in Novelli’s fluid and sensual draftsmanship. The nude is conveyed in broad strokes of gray washes, modeled in a darker ink with a finer brush. While a similar seated slave is in the Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 1975.1.389), this drawing may belong to a series which included a drunken Bacchus with a putto recently on the market (Bassenge, 1 December 2017, lot 6517).

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