(1490/1500-1543) A procession of figures loading a ship with various supplies and provisions, two drawings with scenes after the frescoes by Polidoro da Caravaggio on the facade of the Villa Gaddi in Rome (1524), pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white, on laid paper, laid down on cardboard support, one sheet inscribed "Polidoro" in pen and brown ink at the lower margin, each 20 x 116 cm, on support, unframed, (2), (Sch)

Literature:
For the frescoes of Polidoro on the facade of the Villa Gaddi in Rome see: Pierluigi Leone de Castris, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Naples 2001, p. 498, No 19. For comparable copies after the frescoes see: Lanfranco Ravelli, Polidoro Caldara da Caravaggio, Milan 1978, Cats. 626, 627, 629, 630, 632, pp. 349-353.

The two present drawings represent two scenes after frescoes by Polidoro da Caravaggio on the facade of the Palazzo Gaddi (the later Palazzo Cesi) in the Via della Maschera d'Oro in Rome (c. 1523-1524). The palace consists of four storeys and nine window axes. Polidoro was commissioned by Niccolo Gaddi to decorate it with grisaille ornaments and figures in illusionistically rendered niches. The two drawings were taken from the main frieze, whose narrative is typical for how Polidoro decorated a facade in the „style of antiquity“ (Gnann 1997, p. 109 ff). The two present scenes show figures packing and transporting provisions which are subsequently being loaded on ships. In the end the fleet will be involved in a battle and finally arrive at the shores of Rome where the river god Tiber, the she-wolf and the twins are resting. In a series of prints after the frieze, Pietro Santi Bartoli (1635-1700) indicates that a procession of Africans and Egyptians and a „Sea battle of Ostia“ are represented. (Gnann 1997, p. 110, n. 454).

A group of comparable drawings including detail copies after scenes of the main frieze are preserved in the Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre, Paris (Inv. 6254, 6255, 6256, 6257, 6258). They are attributed to the Lombard school. Due to the stylistic resemblances with the drawings in the Louvre the present copies may as well be from the hand of a Lombard artist of the late 16th century.