Lot 35: Lorenzo de Ferrari (Genoa 1680-1744)

A reclining nude youth, looking upwards
black and white chalk on grey-blue paper
16 1/8 x 21 7/8 in. (411 x 555 mm.)

Santo Varni, on the associated mount, with inscription 'N 473 [crossed out] 60. Lorenzo De Ferrari coll S. Varni'.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, Paris, 27 March 2003, lot 17.

Mary Newcome Schleier has kindly confirmed the attribution of the present drawing on the basis of a photograph. She suggests that it could be dated to around 1738, when the artist returned from Rome, the same period in which he painted the palace frescoes which can now be found in the Banco di Rome, Piazza de Ferrari, Genoa.
Other drawings of figures by Lorenzo de Ferrari from the Santo Varni collection (numbered 48 and 72 respectively) are in the Palazzo Rosso in Genoa and formerly with Jean-Luc Baroni in 1981 (P. Boccardo, Genovesi a Milano, disegni di Palazzo Rosso e dipinti di Brera, exhib. cat., Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera, 2000, no. 76 and B.Brejon de Lavergnée, 'A Drawing by Lorenzo de Ferrari in the Louvre', Master Drawings, XXIII, (1985-6), p.229, fig. 1).