(Coldrerio near Como 1612–1666 Rome) Study of craftsmen, working on a building, inscribed “Mola”, pen and brown ink, over red chalk, brown wash, on laid paper, handwritten remarks on the reverse in pen and brown ink and sketches in red chalk, 15 x 21,5 cm, browned, soewaht stained, repaired tears at upper margin, mounted, unframed, (Sch)

Provenance: Collection Dr. Arthur Feldmann, Brno; confiscation through the Gestapo March 13, 1939; on deposit of the National Bank in Prague, 1956 transformation to the National Gallery of Prague; 2013 Restitution to the heirs after Dr. Arthur Feldmann.

We are grateful to Prof. Nicholas Turner for the confirmation of the attribution and for his scientific support on cataloguing this entry.

The present drawing is an excellent example for the impulsive drawing style of Pier Francesco Molas. According to Prof. Nichoals Turner it may have been executed between 1655-1660. The figures of the drawing cannot be linked to any of Molas executed works; the sheet may have been drawn after life and considered an independant study. The observation of builders at their work must have been of particular significance for Mola, since his father, Giovanni Battista Mola (1585–1665), was a successful architect in Rome. Together with Francesco Borromini (1599–1667) from Ticino he counted to the most successful architects and stonecutters in the first half of the 17th century. Giovanni Battista Mola brought his family including his young son Pier Francesco from Coldrerio to Rome in 1616, where his was appointed architect of the Camera Apostolica. He received numerous papal assignments there for more than two decades. Pier Francesco may have had yet in his early years the opportunity to observe building places in immediate proximity.
The present drawing expresses the heavy bodily exertion and the difficult and often dangerous working conditions which workers had to meet in mid-17th century. The left side of the ramp in the drawing may show two children at the age of about seven years who are winding a crank handle of an elevator wind together with two adults at the right margin of the drawing.Two other studies at the upper left margin and at the upper right corner of the sheet may vary two figures at the right side, whose position of bodies and movements of the arms he altered subsequently. At the right upper margin one can detect two workers with baskets full of building material, which again exemplify the dangerous working conditons of a completely unsecured building place at that time.