(Casalmaggiore 1661-Cremona 1722) Loth and his daughters, pen and brown ink over black chalk, grey wash, heightened with white body colour, on laid paper, 19,3 x 26,5 cm, an old inscription "Giuseppe Natali" in pen and brown ink on the reverse, mounted, unframed,(Sch)

Provenance: Giorgio Dalla Bella (born in 1923), Venice, Lugt 3774;
anonymous collector’s mark, Lugt 3539;
private collection, Italy.

With a certificate by Prof. Emilio Negro (5 September 2003).

The son and pupil of the painter Giovanni Battista Natale was strongly influenced by the Classicist vein of the Roman Baroque and particularly by Guido Reni and Pietro da Cortona, the latter having also taught his father. Natali sojourned in Rome and in Bologna, where he encountered the Classicist culture immediately. Several stays for study reasons in Milan, Pavia, Lodi, Piacenza and Brescia followed and he received further artistic inspirations. The spontaneity and the expressivity in the present drawing with its quick flow of lines and the physiognomies of the figures point to the influence of Bolognese artists such as Sansone and Graziani. One can observe a similar artistic perception in his painted work, such as in the decoration of the Capella del Sacramento in the Duomo Vecchio in Brescia or in the Cappella di S. Antonio da Padova of the order church of S. Francesco in Milan. According to Prof. Emilio Negro the present drawing is an important discovery in the drawing oeuvre of the artist.