Lot 418: ALESSANDRO CASOLANI

SIENA 1552 - 1606 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN WEARING A HAT, POSSIBLY A SELF-PORTRAIT Black and red chalk within pen and brown ink framing lines; bears two faint inscriptions in pen and brown ink at the lower margin, recto, both indecipherable, and bears two other inscriptions in pen and brown ink, verso: Lud Carracci and ....cco (?) Carace 116 by 85 mm

Van Regteren Altena Collection (according to label on an old mount, no longer with the drawing); sale, London, Sotheby's, 15 November 1961, part of lot 260 (as Federico Zuccaro, Portrait of Annibale Carracci), purchased by Ralph Holland

Alessandro Bagnoli discusses, in his short essay on Casolani's drawings, how the artist 'creates a sense of light by relying solely on the contrast between the drawn and blank areas, as can be seen in his pencil drawings in which he uses meticulous parallel lines in the tradition of the Tuscan and Roman masters of the earlier 1500s.'1 This technique has been employed in the present sketch where both red and black chalk vertical lines contrast with the tone of the paper. Casolani also achieves a softness in his application of chalk, with an almost sfumato effect. Stylistically this portrait can be compared with another drawing, his study for Salome Showing Herod the Head of St. John the Baptist.2 It is possible that the present portrait is in fact a self-portrait, as the features do bear a strong resemblance to Bernardino Capitelli's etching of a rather older Alessandro Casolani (fig. 1).3 1. Il Piacere Del Colorire, Artistic Itinerary of Alessandro Casolani 1552/53-1607, exhib. cat., Casole d'Elsa, Museo Archeologico e della Collegiata, 2002, pp. 37-38 2. Marco Ciampolini, Drawing in Reniassance and Baroque Siena: 16th and 17th Century Drawings from Sienese Collections, exhib.cat., Athens, Georgia Museum of Art, 2002, Florida, Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art and Siena, Magazzini del Sale, Palazzo Pubblico, 2003, p. 91, fig. 2 (Biblioteca Comunale, Siena, S III.5., fol. 115r) 3. Exhib.cat., Casole d'Elsa, op.cit., p. 11, reproduced