Lot 207: Prospero Fontana (Bologna 1512-1597)

Prospero Fontana (Bologna 1512-1597)
Athena
traces of black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey wash
4½ x 3 3/8 in. (114 x 86 mm.); and Agostino Tassi, Pope Urban VIII bestowing the prefecture of Rome upon his nephew, Taddeo Barberini; Leonardo Scaglia, Four putti holding a crown and fleur-de-lis; Giovanni Guerra, Two scenes from the life of a saint, most likely Saint Bruno; and Roman School, 18th Century, Allegory of Folly (6)

Williamstown, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, and elsewhere, Master Drawings from the Collection of Ingrid and Julius S. Held, 1979, no. 1 (as by Giulio di Antonio Bonasone) (1).

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 13 July 1972, part of lot 32 (1).

Other drawings from the Sotheby's album are at the British Museum (J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and drawings in the British Museum: Artists working in Rome, c. 1550 - c. 1640, London, 1983, nos. 104-111). All 84 are studies for or are connected with Giulio Bonasone's engravings for Achille Bocci's emblem book, Symbolicarum Quaestionum, De Universo Genere quas serio ludebat Libri Quinque (Bartsch XV, p. 157, 179-328; 260).
The Scaglia is comparable to another drawing of putti by the artist sold at Christie's, London, 15 December 1992, lot 94.
The Agostino Tassi drawing was acquired as a work by Francesco Allegrini. Nicholas Turner in a letter to Professor Held (dated 22 October 1983) attributed it to Tassi. The red chalk inscriptions seem to refer to the colors of the woman's dress, as the only legible inscription reads 'Rosso'.
According to Professor Held's notes, Konrad Oberhuber, then at the Albertina in Vienna first recognized the Two scenes from the life of Saint Bruno as works by Guerra.