Lot 28: Bartolomeo Ramenghi, called Bagnacavallo , Bagnacavallo 1484 - 1542 Bologna christ among the doctors Point of the brush and brown wash, heightened with white, over black chalk, on paper washed gray-green; on two joined sheets; bears old attribution

Point of the brush and brown wash, heightened with white, over black chalk, on paper washed gray-green; on two joined sheets; bears old attribution in pen, lower center: Antonio da Coreggio

measurements note 693 by 531mm

Bears collector's mark, perhaps Dr. A. Tardieu, (L.183b);
Nicos Dhikeos, bears his mark (not in Lugt) lower left;
acquired in 1990

Given the scale and conception of this impressive drawing, it seems likely that it was made as a modello for one of a group of small panels depicting the life of Christ, that would have flanked a central altarpiece. The same composition, with variants, is known from two further surviving drawings: a previously anonymous sheet, now kept under the name of Bagnacavallo, in the Louvre (inv. no. 10079), and a compositionally less complete drawing in the British Museum, catalogued by Pouncey and Gere as 'presumed to be after Raphael'.υ1 In their catalogue entry for the British Museum drawing, Pouncey and Gere pointed out that this composition was well known and much admired in Emilia at the beginning of the sixteenth century. A number of related drawings and paintings by influential Bolognese and Ferrarese artists have survived, and a section of the same vaulted architecture seen in the present drawing appears in Bagnacavallo's fresco of The Visitation, painted for the church of SS. Vitale and Agricola, Bologna.υ2 Pouncey and Gere also, however, noted that this popularity does not necessarily imply that the design originates from these cites. Indeed, they argued that its originality and its grand conception of architectural space were worthy of the invention of Raphael, and stressed the close parallels -- in terms of the grouping of the figures and their questioning expressions -- with the Disputa in the Stanza della Segnatura. According to Vasari, Bagnacavallo visited Rome 'ne tempi di Raffaelle' (probably between 1516 and 1520) with Biagio Pupini, with whom he shared not only some important commissions but also a deep devotion to Raphael. Pouncey and Gere were also first to suggest that the version of this composition in the Louvre was not far from the style of Bagnacavallo. The Paris sheet is the closest to the present drawing, but it does not appear to be of similarly high quality, because of the weaker execution of the figures and the poor understanding of their relationship to the architecture. The Horvitz drawing is also much freer in execution, has extensive chalk underdrawing, and shows a few noticeable pentimenti; the left arm and hand of the man at the bottom of the staircase to the far left have, for example, been significantly altered. The Louvre drawing includes a number of figures at the top of the staircase on the right that match the group on the left, but in the present study the artist has only freely sketched these figures, and the staircase itself, in black chalk. Other works Inspired by the same source as the Horvitz drawing include Mazzolino's study of Christ Disputing (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York), his painting of the same subject (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), a panel painting by Garofalo (Galleria Sabauda, Turin), and perhaps most significantly a drawing of Christ disputing in the Temple (Galleria Estense, Modena), by Bagnacavallo's son, Giovanni Battista Ramenghi.υ3 This last work was first published by C. Bernardini, who recognized it as a preparatory study for one of the small scenes of the Life of Christ surrounding the altarpiece of the Madonna del Rosario (1585) in the Dominican Church of Santa Maria del Carmine.υ The Modena composition is rather simplified and reorganised -- focusing on the immediate group of Doctors around Christ -- but it includes a number of significant quotations, leaving no doubt that it also derives from this famous lost composition, presumably by Raphael, whose popularity was perpetuated by the next generation of Emilian artists. 1. See respectively: Dominique Cordellier and Bernadette Py, Raphael, son atelier, ses copistes, Paris 1992, p. 65, reproduced fig. 55; P. Pouncey and J.A. Gere, Raphael and his Circle, London 1962, vol. I, pp. 43-4, reproduced vol. II, pl. 54 2. C. Bernardini in Pittura Bolognese del '500, vol. I, reproduced p. 134 3. See respectively S. Zamboni, Ludovico Mazzolino, Milan 1968, reproduced figs. 43 and 40; A.M. Fioravanti Baraldi, Il Garofalo, Rimini 1993, p. 182, no. 113, reproduced; M. di Giampaolo, Disegni Emiliani del Rinascimento, Milan 1989, p. 194, reproduced