Lot 113: DOMENICO CAMPAGNOLA

DOMENICO CAMPAGNOLA PADUA 1484 - 1550 (?) A WALLED ANCIENT CITY, POSSIBLY JERUSALEM, PEOPLE PRAYING IN FRONT OF AN ALTAR Pen and brown ink and wash; bears brown ink numbering on lower left of the mount: 216 , the back of the mount numbered in brown ink: N o 11, in pencil: 16 393 by 266 mm

The subject of this drawing suggests it may be derived from an earlier, medieval prototype. Although somewhat more carefully drawn, this sheet can be compared stylistically with the album of twenty-two drawings by Campagnola illustrating the Apocalypse, now at Windsor Castle.υ1 Those compositions are closely based on one of the most extensive Apocalypse fresco cycles produced in the Veneto during the fourteenth century, painted by Giusto de' Menabuoi (1349- ca.1390) as part of the decoration of the Baptistery of Padua cathedral.υ2

1. A.E. Popham and Johannes Wilde, The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries...at Windsor Castle, London 1949, pp. 202-3, nos. 161-182, fig. 41
2. Martin Clayton, 'Drawings by Domenico Campagnola after Giusto de' Menabuoi's Apocalypse frescoes', Master Drawings, vol. 42, no. 4, 2004, pp. 315-7, illus.