Lot 112: Domenico Maria Fratta , Bologna 1696 - 1763 monument to king george I Pen and brown ink over black chalk, within brown ink framing lines; bears numbering in black chalk, upper left, verso : N o 14-

Pen and brown ink over black chalk, within brown ink framing lines; bears numbering in black chalk, upper left, verso : N o 14-

measurements note 680 by 494 mm

This sheet was made by Fratta in preparation for an engraving commissioned as part of a series of allegorical 'memorials' entitled Tombeaux des Princes, des Grands Capitaines et autres Hommes illustres qui ont fleuri dans la Grand Bretagne vers la fin du XVII et le commencement du XVIII siècle. The project was devised in the 1720s by the Irish impresario Owen McSwiny, who commissioned several Venetian and Bolognese artists to create grand allegorical paintings, celebrating outstanding British personalities of the period. The compositions were then to be engraved, after Fratta's drawn copies of the paintings. However, the project was never completed and of the twenty-four allegories McSwiny had intended, only eight were published, in Paris in 1736 and London in 1741. The present composition was adapted from the painting by Francesco Ferdinandi, called Imperiale, and Giuseppe Valeriani, but never engraved. However, a much more finished version of the drawing signed by Fratta and dated 1732 is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., which must have been the intended model for the print.υ1 For further information on the project, see A. van Houtven, 'Two Drawings by Domenico Maria Fratta for McSwiny's ''Tombeaux des Princes''', in Master Drawings, vol. XXXVII, 1999, no.1, pp. 47-54. 1. See A. van Houtven, op. cit., p. 50, fig. 3