Lot 235: f - MARCO MARCHETTI, CALLED MARCO DA FAENZA BORN FAENZA, DIED 1588 TWO STUDIES FOR GROTESQUE WALL

f - MARCO MARCHETTI, CALLED MARCO DA FAENZA BORN FAENZA, DIED 1588 TWO STUDIES FOR GROTESQUE WALL DECORATIONS

both pen and brown ink and wash over traces of black chalk

Quantity: 2

CATALOGUE NOTE

Marchetti is known primarily for his church decorations and his most important work was in the Vatican. He was a protegé of Pope Gregory XIII, and after the death of Lorenzo Sabatini in 1576 he supervised all the Grotesques in the Logge and the Stanze. The present drawings must be of a later date if the lion in the lower right is indeed the emblem of Sixtus V. Similar designs were also used in the decoration of elaborate doors, see for instance, the project for a door panel by Prospero Antichi for the Basilica at Loreto (M.L. Madonna, Roma di Sisto V: Le Arti e la Cultura, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Palazzo Venezia, 1993, p. 351, cat. no. 3, reproduced).

a) 233 by 74mm b) 176 by 77mm