Lot 69: * VALERIO SPADA COLLE VALDELSA 1613 - 1688 FLORENCE

A SHEET OF STUDIES: DECORATIVE MOTIFS AND VIGNETTES OF MARY MAGDALEN, THE FORGE OF VULCAN, AND VARIOUS GENRE SCENES

measurements note
246 by 395mm; 9 11/16 by 15 9 /16 in

numbered in brown ink, verso: N^o. 394.3126.16.4;
bears old attribution in black chalk, verso: -tres belle -/ -Bloemaart -;
pen and brown ink

PROVENANCE

Alfred Beurdeley (L.421);
sale, London, Sotheby's, 7 December 1987, lot 153;
sale, London, Christie's, 3 July 1990, lot 51

NOTE

This delightful sheet is a patchwork of small scenes depicting Venus suckling cupid at the forge of Vulcan, the Magdalen being held up by an angel, and genre scenes including a seated man drawing in a landscape. The latter could be the artist himself, who was a prolific calligrapher and illustrator, as well as being writing instructor to Prince Cosimo III de' Medici, later Grand Duke. He also made manuscripts as gifts to Archduke Ferdinand Charles of Austria and Queen Christina of Sweden. For further information, see P. Dearborn Massar, 'Valerio Spada, Seventeenth-Century Florentine Calligrapher and Draughtsman', Master Drawings, vol. XIX, no. 3, 1981, pp. 251-275.