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 ‘dry’ materials like chalk in his sketches.
After a stint in Raphael’s workshop as a plasterer, a partnership with another of Raphael’s assistants led Polidoro da Caravaggio’s artistic career towards the painting of external frescoes in grisaille, which became his particular speciality. Weather, and time have meant that they ‘have now entirely disappeared and can only be reconstructed from engravings and drawn copies; but these were once among the best known of all modern works of art in Rome’ (Gere) and Polidoro was exceptionally well known in his day.
Roman history appears to have been one of his principal subjects, within which these four figures fit well; rather than friezes, they would presumably have been painted to fill smaller, vertical spaces i.e. between windows. Being external, and so visible, Polidoro’s frescoes were ‘freely accessible at any time for anyone to study and copy. In the later sixteenth century and early seventeenth century this was a recognised part of the training of a Roman artist, and it is not surprising that all old collections of drawings include quantities of copies after details of Polidoro’s facades’ (Gere). It is tempting to imagine Goltzius’ engravings being used as source material for the training of the anonymous artist here, in turn.
Provenance: with the discreet ink stamp of Berlin-based print collector E. Fabricius (d. ca 1920) to the lower corner of the figure of Bacchus on the verso. Fabricius “assembled a collection of prints by Goltzius, Saenredam and other masters of that school, which he sold privately between 1914-18”. Lugt L.919ter.
A.M. Kettering, ‘Hendrick Goltzius: Painting with colored chalk’, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 15:2 (Summer 2023). J.A. Gere, ‘Two Copies after Polidoro da Caravaggio’ Master Drawings 6.3 (Autumn 1968).
