MIA N. WEINER
OLD MASTER DRAWINGS & OIL SKETCHES
pen and brown ink, brown wash, over black chalk. squared for transfer in black chalk and red chalk; 91/4 x 55/8" (235 x 144mm). laid down on old album paper inscribed Del Cigoli per il med° Arco del Duca Cosimo 2°.
Paul Prouté, Paris;
Gerardo Santini (?-1988), Bologna;
private collection, Milan, Italy from whence legally exported.
This drawing is one of a series of important studies for statues which formed part of the temporary decorations erected in Florence in 1608. These were to celebrate the arrival of Maria Maddalena, daughter of Archduke Charles of Austria, for her marriage to Prince Cosimo dei Medici. Cigoli was involved in the overall design and execution of the project, and in particular with the design of three triumphal arches at points along the route of the procession: at the Porta al Prato, the Canto dei Nelli and the Canto alla Paglia. The present drawing related to the last of these arches which was devoted to the House of Bavaria and decorated with statues of illustrious members of that family.
The most detailed account of a number of Cigoli's surviving drawings for this project, together with a summary of some of the related literature, is given by Annamaria Petrioli Tofani.1 Another drawing for the same figure of Albert I of Bavaria is at the Uffizi, Florence (Inv. No. 14315F).2
An important visual record of the procession survives in Matteo Greuter's print, "Intrata della Ser.ma Maria Maddalena Arcid.sa D'Austria Sposa del Ser.mo Cosimo G.Pr. etc., in Fiorenza." A drawing in the Uffizi shows the elaborate project for the arch at the Canto della Paglia with several statues in place over the balustrade and in niches.3
Miles Chappell has kindly endorsed the attribution to Cigoli.
1 | See A. Petrioli Tofani, Drawings by Cigoli for the Entrata of 1608, The Burlington Magazine, vol. CXXVII, no.992, November 1985, pp.785-6. |
2 | see A.Petrioli Tofani, op. cit., fig. 77. |
3 | see M.L. Chappell, Disegni di Lodovico Cardi, exhib. Cat., Florence, Uffizi, 1992, cat.98 |