Lot 108: Baccio del Bianco (Florence 1604-1657 Madrid)

Baccio del Bianco (Florence 1604-1657 Madrid)
A group of elegantly dressed figures with two children and a dog
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, watermark armorial
7 1/8 x 10¾ in. (18 x 27.4 cm.)

Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, The James Fairfax Collection of Old Masters, 1992, unnumbered.
Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, The James Fairfax Collection of Old Master Paintings, Drawings, and Prints, 17 April-20 July 2003, no. 5.

Anonymous sale; Christie's, Rome, 7 November 1989, lot 437.
With Colnaghi, London, 1990, where acquired by
James Fairfax, Bowral, New South Wales.

THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR

It was this type of drawing that the biographer Filippo Baldinucci had in mind when he said of the artist: 'the thing in which Baccio del Bianco excelled, and was perhaps even unique, was inventing and drawing with the pen funny little stories, grotesqueries and caricature portraits which were so well made that they could make people die of laughter' (see J. Brooks, Graceful and True, Drawing in Florence c. 1600, exh. cat., Oxford, Ashmolean Museum and elsewhere, 2003, p. 53, n. 3). Three gesticulating figures, two smaller figures - either children or dwarfs - and a dog engage in a now forgotten narrative. Their fanciful dress, bemused expressions and exaggerated poses suggest a humorous tone as Baldinucci described.
In addition to these comical, almost caricatural drawings, del Bianco was a military engineer, a teacher of architecture, perspective and painting, and a theatrical designer for the Medici court in Florence, and the Spanish royal family in Madrid (see M. Gregori, 'Baccio del Bianco tra Firenze e Madrid', Paragone.Arte, 60, 2009, Ser. 3,86, pp. 15-90).