100 drawings PART 1.qxp 13/11/2017 09:12 Page 17
SOFA
15 ITALIAN SCHOOL Circa 1700
and manuscripts, formed by the Piedmontese nobleman Cesare Saluzzo (1778-1853) – was acquired by the Royal Library in Turin in 1952. The present sheet, however, remained part the collection of drawings, books and manuscripts, mainly of the Italian school, in the possession of Tommaso Alberto Vittorio di Savoia-Genova, 2nd Duke of Genoa (1854-1931). The collection then passed to his eldest son, Ferdinando di Savoia-Genova (1884-1963), 3rd Duke of Genoa and Prince of Udine. Among other drawings with the same provenance from the SavoiaGenova collection is a large group of studies by Giovanni Battista Foggini in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as sheets by other artists in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
A Choir of Angels with Musical Instruments Pen and two shades of brown ink and brown wash, over an underdrawing in black chalk 212 x 339 mm., 8 3/8 x 13 3/8 in. Provenance Probably Cesare Saluzzo, Turin The Dukes of Savoia-Genova (Lugt 47a), probably Tommaso Alberto Vittorio di Savoia-Genova, 2nd Duke of Genoa, Turin By descent to his son, Ferdinando di Savoia-Genova, 3rd Duke of Genoa, until sold in the 1950s Giancarlo Baroni, Florence and Switzerland
An attribution to the Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano (1634-1705) has previously been suggested for this drawing, by stylistic comparison with two preparatory studies, in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, for one of the major works of that artist’s late, Spanish period; the ceiling fresco of Allegory of the Golden Fleece in the Casón del Buen Retiro in Madrid, painted around 1697.
This drawing bears the collector’s mark of the Dukes of Savoia-Genova. The majority of the Savoia-Genova collection – some 17,000 drawings, prints, maps, atlases 17