(Bassano 1557-1622 Venice) Portrait of Andrea Frizier (recto), portrait of Alvise Corradini (verso), a double sheet study, black chalk, on grey laid paper, 7 x 5 cm, mounted, unframed, (Sch)

Provenance: anonymous collector’s mark monogram M in an escutcheon with crown (not in Lugt); private collection, Italy.

With a certificate by Dott. ssa Giuliana Ericani (12. April 2010).

Literature: Atti del Convegno Internazionale dedicato a "Jacopo Bassano, i figli, la scuola, l'eredita", Bassano del Grappa, Padova, March 31st - April 2nd 2011.

The portrait of a man with folded hands on the recto of the sheet bears several resemblances with the portrait of the Imperial Chancellor of Venice, Andrea Frizier, in the Museo Civico in Padua(c.1582).The model is most likely the same and the sketch may therefore be linked to the paintingThe study and the portrait on the reverse may derive from a hitherto unknown sketchbook of Bassano.The portrait drawings are stylistically comparable with a head study in red chalk for the painting. The Matyrdom of Saint Martina in San Sisto a Piacenza“ (1598). The painting may date to the same time as a portrait sketch on the present sheet’s reverse side which presumably prepares the portrait of Alvise Corradini in the Museo Civico di Padua (1592).

According to Dott. ssa Ericani the two drawings are important additions to the graphic oeuvre of Leandro Bassano. The two drawings may shed new light on Bassono’s working procedure as a draftsman and portrait painter. The drawings may have been part of a sketchbook where the artist recorded physiognomies and other detail studies. Moreover, the studies may have also served to discuss arrangements and composition for a painted version with a patron who may have wanted corrections and changes of the composition.