Lot 39: Pietro Malombra , Venice 1556 - 1618 the finding of the true cross Pen and brown ink and wash heightened with white over black chalk, on blue-green paper

Pen and brown ink and wash heightened with white over black chalk, on blue-green paper

measurements note 264 by 417mm

New York, Pandora Old Masters, An Exhibition of Old Master Drawings and Oil Sketches, 1999, no. 4 (as Giovanni Battista Zelotti)

The Age of Titian, exhibition catalogue, Edinburgh, The National Gallery of Scotland, 2004, p. 270 under no. 122 (catalogue entry by Aidan Weston-Lewis)

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 1 December 1964, lot 19 (as Venetian School, late 16th Century;
with H. Shickman Gallery, New York;
Christian Humann, New York,
sale of his Estate, New York, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 12 June 1982, lot 7 (as Circle of Palma il Giovane);
with Pandora Old Masters, New York; acquired in 1999

The attribution to Pietro Malombra has been suggested by Aidan Weston-Lewis, on the basis of comparison with a drawing in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, representing St. Stanislaus raising a dead man, with St. Hyacinth kneeling before the Trinity above.υ1 Until published by Weston-Lewis as Malombra, the Edinburgh drawing had always been associated with the work of Veronese artists, but it is in fact the only known drawing that can be securely connected to a surviving painting by Malombra. It is a preparatory study for the altar of the Polish Nation in the left aisle of the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua. The painting is signed by Malombra and described by the biographer Carlo Ridolfi in his life of the artist. The present drawing has been attributed in the past to the circle of Jacopo Palma il Giovane and to Giovanni Battista Zelotti (circa 1526-1578), but the stylistic similarity with the Edinburgh sheet suggests that it is in fact a very interesting and plausible addition to the extremely small corpus of drawings by Malombra. 1. See The Age of Titian, op. cit., pp. 270-71, cat. no. 122, reproduced