(c. 1700) Acrobats, swinging around a post, pen and brown ink, over traces of black chalk, on laid paper, inscribed "Castiglione" with pen and brown ink at lower left margin, numbered "57LW" in blue chalk on the reverse, 34,4x 24,8 cm, mounted, unframed, (Sch)

Provenance:New York, Sotheby's, January 16, 1985, Lot 268 (as "Italian school, c. 1600").

The present drawing is stilitically comparable with a group of pen drawings in the collection of the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, of which some bear an attribution to "Sassi". The Lombard artist Giovanni Battista Sassi, who was active in Naples and Milan in 1713 und 1747, was assumed to be their author. However, the style of the Bergamo drawings differs from the ones attributed to G. B. Sassi and from known works by this artist in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana in Milan. The draughtsman of the Bergamo sheets was thus named "Pseudo-Sassi" by Carlo Ragghianti. Ragghianti considered him a draughtsman who was rich in invention, strong and dynamic in his dramatic compositions and with a tireless manner. One can draw a stylistic comparison with two sheets showing each a „Crucifixion“ and "Aeneas und Anchises" in the collection of Bergamo.