Lot 21: Jacopo Zucchi (Florence 1541-1596 Rome)

The river god Arno attended by Abundance with the Medici arms and a lion guarding crowns (recto); Design for a double stairway (verso)
with inscription 'A.B.' (recto)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, over stylus indications (recto); black chalk (verso)
6 3/8 x 12 1/4 in. (163 x 310 mm.)

Drawn for Zucchi's decorations in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, on the occasion of the marriage of Francesco, son of Cosimo de'Medici, to Giovanna, youngest daughter of Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, on 16 December 1565.
The festivities required splendid and elaborate ephemeral decorations across the city which were produced by a team of artists lead by Giorgio Vasari following an iconographic plan devised by the humanist Vincenzo Borghini. The centrepiece of the plan was the decoration of the Sala Grande at the Palazzo Vecchio, which was equipped with a temporary stage for a performance of Francesco d'Ambra's La Cofanaria.
The sketch on the verso of the present drawing appears to show a schematic view of the hall with the stage at one end fronted by a double flight of stairs. The triangular shape of the drawing suggests that the design on the recto was intended to decorate the left wing of this staircase, perhaps paired with an Allegory of the Danube with the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor, representing Austria, to the right.