Lot 28: Giovanni Battista Fiammeri (circa 1530-1606)

Tobias and the Angel (recto); A wooded area near a house (verso)
with inscriptions 'Fiamerio Fiorentino' (recto) and 'Gio: Batt. A Fiameri Fio..etti Gio Batt a Siunaprete...'(verso)
pen and brown ink, brown wash
8 3/4 x 5 3/8 in. (223 x 136 mm.)

Captain Carlo Prayer (L. 2044).

The young painter and sculptor Fiammeri is twice mentioned with approbation by Vasari in the 1568 edition of his Vite: 'A pupil of Ammanati [...] of the highest promise' and with the 'promise of becoming an excellent master...' (G. Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, reprinted London, 1996, II, pp. 756 and 887). Baglione in his Vite is more precise about Fiammeri, describing him as a Jesuit father who worked mainly in Rome (G. Baglione, Le Vite De' Pittore, Scultori et Architteti, Rome, 1649, p. 98).
Vasari owned one drawing by Fiammeri, now in the Louvre (L. Ragghianti Collobi, Il Libro de' Disegni del Vasari, Florence, 1979, p. 164, fig. 498), and nine further drawings attributed to him are in the Uffizi (15108F-15112F, 11883F, 924E and 7240).