(1512-1571) A study for the figure of Apoll, c. 1552, inscribed "Niccolo dell'Abba.", pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white, on laid paper, 21 x 13,2 cm, mounted, framed, (Sch)

Provenance:
European private collection. Literature:
See: Cara D. Denison, 'An "Apollo" by Niccolo dell'Abate', in: Master Drawings, Volume 28, No 3, New York 1990, p. 253, pp. 265-267.

The present drawing with a study for the figure of Apollo is related to a design by Niccolo dell’Abbate for the decoration of an exterior clock, thought to be destined for the Palazzo Pubblico, Bologna, but sometimes suggested as for the Palazzo Poggi, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Inv. Nr. 5844). The drawing in the Louvre might have been executed in Bologna between 1550-52, shortly before the artist began to work for the French court. In the Louvre drawing, Apollo stands in front of a column and holds a lyre in his left hand and points down to the right with his right hand. In the present drawing, he supports his lyre with both his left and right hands, while a quiver of arrows, absent from his counterpart in the Louvre drawing, is seen slung over his right shoulder. The handling is extraordinarily fluent, especially in the passages of brush and wash. An earlier, more finished treatment of the figure in black chalk and brown wash, heightened with white, in which Apollo holds a bow to his side with his left hand and holds up an arrow in his right, is in the Morgan Library and Museum (inv. no. 1988.7; C. Denison 1990, p. 253, p. 265-267). The five changes to the composition that the artist cancelled out using white chalk, now darkened due to oxidisation, clearly indicate that he was still uncertain about the design of Apollo’s posture at this stage of the inventive process. For instance, the cancelled design of Apollo's left leg in the present drawing is concrete evidence that it was made after the black chalk drawing at the Morgan Library and Museum, but before the red chalk drawing at the Musée du Louvre.

The fine quality of the drawing and its stylistic similarities with the drawing for Apollo in the Morgan Library and Museum suggest that the present drawing can also be attributed to Niccolo dell’Abbate in preparation for the design of the exterior clock for the Palazzo Pubblico in Bologna, datable 1550-1552. Independently from each other, Prof. Bernard Jan Hendrik Aikema, Prof. Paul Joannides and Dr. Nicholas Turner have confirmed the attribution to Niccolo dell'Abbate. In the opinion of Prof. Elisabetta Fadda, the quality and the relation of the present drawing to the two studies in the Musée du Louvre and the Morgan Library and Museum is without question, however she does not think that the attribution to the artist is obvious.

We would like to thank Dr Nicholas Turner for his assistance in cataloguing this drawing.