Lot 36: Anton Kern (Bohemia 1709-1747 Dresden)

Anton Kern (Bohemia 1709-1747 Dresden) Two boys looking into a tripod urn, one holding a large tray, after Giovanni Battista Pittoni with inscription 'N° 6' (verso) graphite, red wash, heightened with white 11¾ x 10 2/3 in. (30 x 27.6 cm.); (2)

30 x 27.6 cm.

Sir Francis Watson, and thence by descent to the present owner.

This drawing, and the following lot, copy figures taken from paintings by Kern’s master Giovanni Battista Pittoni (1687-1767). The figures in the present sheet are after the Allegorical tomb of Charles Sackville 6th Earl of Dorset, circa 1726 (F. Zava Bocazzi, Pittoni. L'Opera completa, Venice, 1979, no. 261, fig. 139), of which there are three other copies by Kern in the Louvre (op. cit., figs. 140-2). Kern was in Pittoni’s studio between 1723 and 1730.