Lot 538: GIOVANNI BATTISTA FOGGINI

A) DESIGN FOR THE HIGH ALTAR OF THE BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE;
B) AN ELABORATE DESIGN FOR THE UPPER PART OF AN ARCHWAY


a) Pen and brown ink and gray, yellow and brown wash, over black chalk, an alternative design for the bases of the columns on a paper flap;with a scale in brown ink, lower center;b) Pen and brown ink with touches of black ink and gray-brown wash, over black chalk

a) 18 1/2 by 14 1/2 in, 471 by 368 mm; b) 11 1/4 by 16 1/2 in, 287 by 420 mm, the arch cut out (9)

a) J. Montagu, 'The Bronze Groups made for the Electress Palatine', in Kunst der Barock in der Toskana: Studien zur Kunst unter den letzten Medici, Munich 1976, pp. 129, 134, note 19, reproduced fig. 5, p. 130;
S. Casciu, La Principessa Saggia: l'eredità di Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Elettrice Palatina, exhib. cat., Florence 2006, p. 308, under cat. no. 169

All with the Heim Gallery, London, from whom purchased;
a) Sale, Rome, Christie's, 12 November 1974, lot 56;
Private collection, London;
b) Sale, Florence, Sotheby's, 11 April 1974, lot 38

One of the two drawings by Foggini in this lot is a preparatory design for the High Altar of the Baptistery, Florence, a commission he received in 1723. The figures of Christ and St John the Baptist seen at the centre of the composition are thought to have been based on Foggini's bronze of the same subject, now in the Collection Bernardino Osio, Buenos Aires. (1 )The second design was made by Foggini for the church of S. Stefano dei Cavalieri, Pisa, where the sculptor worked on the High Altar between 1702-1709. We are most grateful to Jennifer Montagu for confirming the attribution of these drawings to Foggini and identifying the projects.

Sold with seven other Italian Baroque designs; one, previously attributed to Schorr, bears unidentified collector's mark, possibly that of the Savoia-Aosta family (L.47a).

1. See J. Montagu, op.cit., p. 129