Lot 51: JACOPO STRADA

DESIGN FOR A MIRROR WITH AN ALLEGORICAL FIGURE OF PRUDENCE, AND A SEPARATE STUDY OF A HANDLE

15 7/8 by 10 1/8 in; 403 by 257 mm

Pen and brown ink and wash; Bears inscription in pen and brown ink: UNO STUZZO

San Francisco, reproduced p.29

Incorrectly described in the San Francisco exhibition catalogue as a study for a hanging object, this is in fact a design for a mirror with an elaborate frame. It is closely related to a wooden mirror now in the Casa Vasari in Arezzo (fig.1), in which the central oval painting with the same allegorical figure of Prudence is attributed to Alessandro Allori (1535-1607). The central painted panel slides to the right, uncovering the mirror below, and the whole is surrounded by an elaborate and ornamental frame (35 by 24 cm). The separate study of the handle at the bottom of the present sheet offers an alternative to hanging the mirror on a wall. This important, and frequently exhibited, mirror is possibly the only known example of this type of rare mannerist object to have survived. (1)

A version of this design, not including the separate study for the handle and also incorrectly identified as a hanging object, is in Palermo, (2) part of an album of ornamental drawings put together by Padre Sebastiano Resta (1635-1714). The version in Palermo is annotated in Resta's hand: del Piloto orefice..... The goldsmith Giovanni di Baldassarre, called il Piloto, is an almost legendary figure and we have no record of his work; he died in 1536. (3)

1. See A. Paolucci-A.M. Maetzke, La Casa del Vasari in Arezzo, Florence 1988, p. 143
2. Biblioteca Comunale, vol. XXIII H 38, no. 56b
3. See S. Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, 'Officina Farnesiana': Disegni per Oreficerie', Francesco Salviati et La Bella Maniera, Actes des colloques de Rome et de Paris (1998), Rome 2001, pp. 414-5, reproduced fig. 5; pp. 407-8, note 9