Lot 65: Ippolito Andreasi, called il Andreasino , Mantua 1548 - 1608 studies for two lunettes with central female allegorical figures, one with a mandolin player, the other with a violin player surrounded by other female musicians Each pen and brown ink and

Each pen and brown ink and wash over traces of black chalk, with touches of oxidised white heightening, one squared for transfer in black chalk Quantity: 2

measurements note 150 by 230 mm; 193 by 258 mm

These previously unknown drawings were formerly associated with Primaticcio, but they are clear examples of the graphic style of Ippolito Andreasi, a Mantuan artist of the second half of the16th century. His graphic oeuvre was first studied by Richard Harprath in an article in Master Drawings in 1984.υ1 The artist, who seems to have been born in 1548 and died in 1608, was most probably a pupil of one of Giulio's followers such as Rinaldo Mantovano, Fermo Ghisoni or Lorenzo Costa the Younger. These two lunettes with their musical subjects must relate to Andreasi's work in the Castle of Goito, where between 1586-7 he painted a Trionfo della Musica in the Camera della Musica of the Ducal apartments. It appears that no other studies with a similar subject have survived and unfortunately the castle of Goito and its decoration have been destroyed. 1. See 'Ippolito Andreasi as a draughtsman' in Master Drawings, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 3 -28, pls. 1-26