Lot 514: GIULIO PIPPI, CALLED GIULIO ROMANO

GIULIO PIPPI, CALLED GIULIO ROMANO ROME 1499 - 1546 MANTUA THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS Pen and brown ink and point of the brush and brown wash, indented for transfer 394 by 320 mm; 15 1/2 by 12 5/8 in

Giuseppe Vallardi (L.1223), and in the right corner another Vallardi collection stamp (not in Lugt);
Comte Rey de Villette (L.2200a);
Jacob H. Wiegersma (L.1552b)

A complete composition with all its contours indented for transfer, this previously unknown study seems to belong stylistically to the years when Giulio Romano was working on the Adoration of the Shepherds with St. Longinus commissioned by Isabella Boschetti circa 1536 for the basilica of Sant' Andrea in Mantua and now in the Louvre.υ1 A stylistically close comparison can also be made with the pen and ink study for a Marriage of St Catherine now in the Biblioteca Reale, Turinυ2 which was dated by Hartt circa 1531 and thought to be a modello for a lost painting. The Turin sheet is highly finished and enriched by a generous use of wash, like the present drawing which can also be considered a modello for a lost or unexecuted work.

1. Inv. 421; see Giulio Romano, exhib. cat., Mantua, Palazzo Te, 1989, reproduced p. 431
2. Inv. 12/29; ibid., reproduced p. 430