Lot 63: Giuseppe Passeri , Rome 1654 - 1714 st bernard received into the abbey of citeaux by st stephen harding Pen and brown ink and wash, heightened with white, over traces of red chalk, on paper washed pink; bears attribution in pen and brown ink, lower

Pen and brown ink and wash, heightened with white, over traces of red chalk, on paper washed pink; bears attribution in pen and brown ink, lower right: Vanni ; and bears inscription in pencil on the verso: Reception de Charlequint / au couvent de St Just / Velasquez

measurements note 328 by 212mm

London, Kate de Rothschild at William Darby's Gallery, Exhibition of Old Master Drawings, 1977, no.13

H.S. Reitlinger (L.2274a), his sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 December 1953, lot 74 (as Giuseppe Passeri, Charles V being received at the Convent of St. Just);
sale, London, Sotheby's, 10 March 1977, lot 79;
with Kate de Rothschild, London;
sale, Paris, Hotel Drouot, Piasa, 23 March 2001, lot 34 (as Attributed to Passeri); acquired at the sale

Kate de Rothschild was the first to relate this drawing to Passeri's painting, formerly hanging in the abbey at Citeaux and now in the museum at Dijon.υ1 The painted composition is rather different, but this drawing could indeed be an early idea for it. Another finished drawing, which corresponds exactly with the painting but in reverse, is at Windsor.υ2 The rather Spanish costumes of the noblemen is perhaps why the subject was previously thought to be Charles V retiring to the monastery of St. Just, in Estremadura, which he entered in 1557. An anonymous drawing with very much the same composition is in the Albertina, Vienna.υ3 1. Marguerite Guillaume, Catalogue raisonné du Musée de Dijon, Peinture italiennes, Dijon 1980, pp. 58-60, no. 92 2. A. Blunt and H.L. Cooke, Roman Drawings...at Windsor Castle, London 1960, p. 74, no. 567 3. Inv. 23231; V. Birke and J. Kertész, Die Italienischen Zeichnungen der Albertina, IV, Vienna/Cologne/Weimar 1997, p. 2216, reproduced