Lot 32: Attributed to Belisario Corenzio (Naples 1590-1646)

The Meeting of Saints Benedict and Totila
with inscriptions 'Di Giuseppino' and 'Passigano'
red chalk and red wash heightened with white, in an inscribed lunette
9 x 16 1/4 in. (228 x 414 mm.)

Poughkeepsie, Vassar College Art Gallery, Refining the Imagination: Tradition, Collecting and the Vassar Education, 1999, no. 12.

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 3 July 1995, lot 212 (as Corenzio).

Property of a Charitable Trust, from the Collection of Jak Katalan (lots 9, 10, 12, 18, 23 and 32)

Nicholas Turner has suggested that the present sheet might be related to works by Corenzio for the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino, or frescoes in the Benedictine cloister and church of SS. Severino e Sosio in Naples. An alternate attribution to Giovanni Maria Morandi (Florence 1622-1717 Rome) has also been suggested. The drawing's distinct red chalk and red wash technique seem close to other works by Morandi. Comparable examples are at the Louvre, Miracle of Saint Francis Xavier bringing forth water from a rock (see F. Viatte, C. Mobeig Goguel, Dessins baroques florentins au Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1981-82, p. 196); Chatsworth, Vision of the Virgin and Child in Glory appearing to Saint Philip Neri (red chalk only) (M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Italian Drawings: Roman and Neapolitan Schools, London, 1994, no. 278, inv. 636); and Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Marriage of the Virgin (Schleier, po. cit., p. 15).