[Original pen and ink drawings] Four Olympian Gods after frescoes by Polidoro da Caravaggio.

£2,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

An attractive sheet of accomplished ink sketches of lost, monochromatic frescoes by Polidoro Caldara, called da Caravaggio (1499-1543). They are near-contemporary to, and very likely copied from draftsman, painter and engraver Hendrick Goltzius’ (1558-1617) 1592 suite of 8 engravings of the lost works**.** The Roman deities here, Vulcan, Sol, Mercury and Bacchus, along with four others, originally adorned the courtyard wall of St. Paul’s Convent, on the Quirinal in Rome. Acclaimed Dutch engraver, print publisher, draftsman, and painter Hendrick Goltzius travelled to Italy in 1590 - apparently incognito, to avoid having to socialise - and reached Rome in 1591. His engravings of these deities were printed in 1592, prompting the production of copies (by Antonio Caranzano in Rome, 1613, and others). Fairly accomplished, and evidently early, these drawings are very likely after Goltzius’ engravings and/or the copies they subsequently inspired, perhaps as a drawing exercise. Goltzius’ own sketches of these frescos were executed in chalk, ink and wash on blue paper (see objects N. 014 and N 016, Goltzius’ drawings of Vulcan and Mercury respectively; N 013, Pluto from the same series, and Saturn N 011, all at the Teylers Museum, Haarlem). Before his travels to Italy, Goltzius ‘showed a preference for pen and ink (and sometimes metalpoint) for drawings preparatory to engravings’, but his time there, influenced by the practice of his Italian contemporaries, led to increasing use of ‘dr

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