Lot 63: Attributed to Jacopo di Guasparre, called Il Rosso Fiorentino , Florence 1494 - 1541 Fontainebleau apollo surrounded by several gods weeping at the fate of marsyas Pen and brown ink and gray wash over red chalk, heightened with partly oxidized white,

Pen and brown ink and gray wash over red chalk, heightened with partly oxidized white, indentation visible on the figure of Marsyas

measurements note 352 by 250 mm

This elaborate and finished composition, which appears to be the invention of Rosso Fiorentino, is hitherto unknown, and is not recorded in any print or drawing previously associated with the artist. From a technical point of view, the drawing is both distinctive and highly accomplished and can be related very convincingly to Rosso's work. The initial, slightly freer study has been drawn in red chalk, over which the artist has worked the composition up in pen and ink. Careful study shows there are clear pentimenti where the pen and ink does not precisely follow the red chalk underdrawing, for instance in the right hand of Apollo where the fingers are clearly bent in a different position. On top of this, there is extensive white heightening, carefully and delicately applied with parallel strokes, and also a considerable amount of gray wash to indicate the shadows. Such smoothly applied gray wash is found in various relatively early Rosso drawings, such as the Design for an Altar in the British Museum, which seems to date from towards the end of his Italian period, circa 1529.υ1 To indicate the left edge of his composition, the artist has drawn a thin brown line all the way down the side of the sheet, although this border is strangely interrupted at the level of the long and round hip of a female deity, possibly Venus. A similar feature is, however, found in other Rosso drawings.υ2 The black framing lines around all four edges of the sheet are later, and are probably the remains of a former mount. We have been informed that in the Nourri collection, under the name of Primaticcio, there was a drawing in the same media that we see here, representing Apollo and Marsyas.υ3 The drawings in the Nourri collection seem to have been embellished with just such black framing lines and it is easy to imagine a confusion between Rosso and Primaticcio, but without the survival of a complete mount this provenance is unfortunately impossible to prove. The paper has a clear watermark of an angel facing right in an oval, surmounted by a six pointed star, which appears to be typical of Northern Italian paper of around 1530. On stylistic grounds, this drawing should be dated to Rosso's late period in France, where he arrived in the autumn of 1530, a conclusion that is not significantly contradicted by the fact that the paper may be Italian. When artists travelled from one place to another they often took their materials with them, or ordered them from suppliers at home with whom they were familiar; Rosso himself is even known to have ordered special pigments from Venice while working in France. Very little has survived from Rosso's French period, so his late drawing style is still a matter of debate and controversy. As there are no other surviving studies for this composition, or prints after it, it seems reasonable to assume that it is a discarded project. It is, however, slightly surprising that there seem to be no other related preliminary studies, as it is hard to see how this impressive and ambitious composition could have reached such a unified and harmonious form without a significant amount of work and experimentation on the part of the artist. We are very grateful to Dr. Paul Taylor of the Warburg Institute for clarifying the unusual subject of this composition. He believes the artist is trying to follow the text of Ovid's Metamorphoses in describing the cruel fate of the satyr Marsyas, without properly understanding the meaning of the word Olympus in the text. The artist has assumed that all the gods of Olympus wept for Marsyas' misfortune and their falling tears formed the eponymous river of Phrygia. In the drawing, around the figure of Apollo holding Marsyas' skin, are Saturn (Old Father Time), Jupiter and Ganymede, who is the origin of the constellation Aquarius, possibly Juno, Venus or a nymph standing near Midas, a river god on the ground and Neptune to the right to show that the river Marsyas was meant to flow down to the sea. Marsyas was a celebrated piper of Celaenae in Phrygia, son of Olympus, or of Hyagnis. He had the impudence to challenge Apollo to a trial of his skill as a musician. Apollo accepted the challenge and it was mutually agreed that he who was defeated should be flayed alive by the winner. The Muses were appointed the judges and they, predictably, chose Apollo as the winner. The death of Marsyas was universally lamented and the Fauns, Satyrs and Nymphs wept at his fate. Paul Taylor has also alerted us to the existence of a study in Berlinυ4 of Apollo and Marsyas with Midas, a Nymph and two river gods, which was formerly attributed to Rosso but is no longer associated with his work. 1. Inv. no. 1948-4-10-15; see N. Turner, Florentine Drawings of the sixteenth century, London 1986, p. 150, cat. no.107, reproduced in colour p. 149 2. See for instance, Eugene A. Carroll, The Drawings of Rosso Fiorentino, New York & London 1976, vol. II, p. 301, D.30 reproduced no. 88 3. See Paris, Hôtel de Bullion, Catalogue d'une belle collection de tableaux...prevenans du Cabinet de M. Nourri, 24 February 1785, p. 208, lot 1102 4. Kupferstichkabinett, inv.no. KdZ 18 197