Lot 25: Camillo Procaccini (Bologna 1555-1629 Milan)

Saint John the Baptist flanked by Saint Barbara and other Saints
dated '1577' and with inscriptions 'Proca n o.' in a tablet and 'Camillo Procaccini'
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash on blue paper, the Saint on the right on an attached piece of paper
10 3/4 x 7 7/8 in. (273 x 199 mm.)

Related in subject to Procaccini's earliest know picture painted for a chapel of Saint John the Baptist and now in the Galleria Estense in Modena (A. Mazza, 'Un San Giovanni Battista di Camillo Procaccini diciannovenne nella Galleria Estense', Pittura a Modena e a Reggio Emilia tra Cinque e Seicento, Modena, 1998, pp. 41-82, fig. 1) The painting and the drawing are both dated 1577.
Son of the Bolognese painter Ercole Procaccini, Camillo worked in Bologna till 1587, when he moved to Milan. From 1580 he worked on the decoration of the Church of Saint Peter in Bologna together with Bartolomeo Cesi and Cesare Aretusi. This is the only known drawing from Procaccini's Bolognese period, and shows the influence of his Bolognese contemporaries such as Sabatini and Calvaert.