Lot 12: Jacopo di Giovanni di Francesco, called Jacone (Florence 1495-1553)

A group of three figures perhaps for Christ in the house of Mary and Martha
black chalk, pen and brown ink
10 5/8 x 8 1/2 in. (270 x 206 mm.)

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings in New York Collections, 1994, no. 22.
Poughkeepsie, Vassar College, and elsewhere, The Katalan Collection of Italian Drawings, 1995-96, no. 5.

David Ekserdjian, review of New York 1994 exhibition, The Burlington Magazine, CXXXVI, (1994), p. 203.

Anonymous sale; Christie's, 23 November 1971, lot 24 (as attributed to Niccoló Tribolo).
Feitelson Collection, Los Angeles (their mark, not in Lugt).
with Marcello Aldega and Margot Gordon, 1987, no. 3.

Property of a Charitable Trust, from the Collection of Jak Katalan (lots 9, 10, 12, 18, 23 and 32)

Jacone's drawings are characterized by energetic pen lines and vigorous hatching combined with contorted poses and sometimes obscure subject matter. The present sheet epitomizes these qualities, with the sculptural figures and graphic lines recalling the works of his friend, Bandinelli. While it has been suggested that the subject might be Christ in the house of Mary and Martha, another drawing by Jacone in the Uffizi shows a similar grouping of figures, indicating perhaps that the artist was experimenting with a composition (C. Davis, 'Michelangelo, Jacone and the Confraternity of the Virgin Annunciate called "dell'Orcivlo"', Apollo, no. 487, 2002, p. 24, fig. 3).
Although his artistic identity is not as well known today as that of some of his contemporaries, Jacone was known to Vasari who described in detail his debauched lifestyle in addition to his fantastic graphic style. His artistic personality has re-emerged recently thanks to U. Middledorf and James Byam Shaw. He was for a time confused with the artist Tribolo. Charles Davis also identified a drawing by Jacone on the verso of a sheet by Michelangelo (C. Davis, op. cit.).
Jacone was one of the most inventive artists to have been trained in Andrea del Sarto's workshop. The connection to Andrea del Sarto is especially unusual given that Jacone's drawings are almost exclusively done in pen and ink while del Sarto worked primarily in chalk. In addition, Jacone's drawings have more of an affinity with the Mannerist style of Pontormo, Bandinelli and Bacchiacca, all of whom he knew.