DONATO CRETI

Cremona 1671 — 1749 Bologna

Ascension of St. Catherine

pen & golden brown ink. 91/4 x 11" (235 x 279mm). WM.

provenance:
Dr. William Suida, Vienna & New York, and by descent to Bettina Suida-Manning, then to her daughter.

This drawing has been seen by Dott. Marco Riccomini and accepted as autograph.1 In his recent monograph on Creti's drawings, while not including the present drawing, Riccomini does illustrate a painting of an identical figure, minus the angels.2 The location of the painting, which appears cut down (no size is given but it looks cropped), is presently unknown, but it had been with Agnew's. Riccomini places its image on the same page as Creti's altarpiece, The Virgin and Child in Glory with St. Ignazio, in San Petronious, Bologna. Presumably Riccomini believes it may have been made in connection with the altarpiece which was finished in 1737. Indeed, in the background, one can see the bust of a female saint with a palm in her left hand. However, in a slightly later altarpiece for the same church, Creti painted an identical figure, albeit without the palm, rather with one hand crossing her chest.3 She is in the clouds, as in the drawing and the Agnew's painting, in the upper section of the painting. The drapery over her legs is the same, and putti surround this figure. The later altarpiece, Charity of San Carlo Borromeo, is dated 1740. Thus it seems that the present drawing was sigificant in that it was useful for both altarpieces.

Donato Creti ranks as one of the most elegant painters and draughtsman of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was a prolific artist, happily employed by the local aristocracy who commissioned his paintings, often mythological series with gracefully posed figures set in stunning landscapes and employing brilliant colors.


1

some years ago in person.

2

Marco Riccomini, Donato Creti, Le opera su carte, Torino, 2012,

3

Renato Roli, Donato Creti, Milan, 1967, fig. 85.