Lot 279: BARTOLOMEO CESI

BOLOGNA 1556 - 1629 RECTO: STUDY OF A KNEELING MONK AND OF HIS HEAD VERSO: STUDY OF A KNEELING MONK Red chalk, heightened with white chalk (recto and verso), on blue paper; bears old attribution in pen and brown ink, verso: del Cesi 333 by 221 mm

Newcastle, 1982, no. 30

Alessandro Maggiori (L.3005b, with his inscription, mostly obscured, on the verso: Ales. Maggiori compro / a Bologna l'anno 1792,...); Ludwig Pollak (L.788b); sale, London, Christie's, 30 September 1975, lot 104, purchased by Ralph Holland

These studies are for the figure of St. Pietro Tommaso in Cesi's altarpiece of the Crucifixion with St. Andrew, St. Bartholomew and St. Pietro Tommaso which was commissioned by Filippo Zini in 1584 for his family chapel in S. Martino, Bologna and is recorded as being on the altar by 12 May 1585. As Di Giampaolo comments, (loc. cit.), the work shows the influence of Roman artists such as Muziano and Venusti. The figure in the painting corresponds more closely to the study on the recto, although the position of the Saint's right hand is more like that on the verso. A study for the whole composition, with significant differences, is at Windsor.1 St. Pietro Tommaso (1305-66) was born in France and joined the Carmelite Order. He played a major role in church affairs, at Avignon during the schism, and later in Constantinople and the eastern Mediterranean. He founded the Faculty of Theology at Bologna University, which is perhaps why he was included in this altarpiece. 1. A. Graziani, F. Abbate and M. Di Giampaolo, Bartolomeo Cesi, Milan 1988, p. 164, reproduced fig. 5 and the altarpiece fig. 6