NORTHERN ITALIAN SCHOOL c.1550 - 1600

TWO STUDIES OF A LAPWING TOGETHER WITH A STUDY OF A MAGPIE AND A KLESTREL
Pen and black ink and watercolour, heightened with touches of white, on laid paper, each bird silhouetted and laid to a support
19.5 x 27 cm [First two] | 19.5 x 28.2 cm [Third]
 
PROVENANCE:
(All three) Private Collection(s), Germany
 
 
 
 
This fascinating trio of ornithological studies is by a distinctive but as-yet-unidentified artist, almost certainly from the Northern provinces of the Italian peninsula and active at the start of the 17th century. Further examples by this anonymous hand include a Study of a Magpie and Kestrel, previously with Cortona Fine Art, Milan (and exhibited in their 2021 show The Seduction of Drawing, cat. no. 2); and a Study of a Lapwing, sold at Bassenge, Berlin, 31.05.2019, lot 6619a. There are also two drawings from the Schillings Bequest in the British Museum which bear a close resemblance and are cut and silhouetted for an album (acc. nos. 1997,0712.42 & 88). A series of not dissimilar (though not identical) studies of animals and insects in gouache on parchment are part of an album called 'The Lombard Album', in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (acquired in 1952). Those works are attributed also to a Northern Italian hand, though they are not silhouetted, and the inscriptions identifying each animal appear to be more modern than those on the sheets from the same album as our examples.
 
There exists also a group of similarly-silhouetted ornithological studies in tempera and watercolour on paper, which are laid to larger supporting sheets, in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence. These works are catalogued as inv. nos. 2094 Orn, 2101 Orn., 2111 Orn., 2119-2121 Orn., 2123-2127 Orn. Although known only to us in negative reproductions, there is one particular closely comparable element that suggest a very tentative connection between the Florence examples and our own (without first-hand inspection this remains unconfirmed): whoever cut these drawings out was, it seems, striving partly for uniformity between each sheet, and the cut-outs are (for the most part) neat and rectangular; however, there are many instances where, as with our examples, the actual cut-outs around the birds extend beyond the border of the silhouetted sheet. This creates a sense of vivacity in the birds, as if they extend beyond the pictoral plane, and it is a highly idiosyncratic presentation. 
 
 
Anna Maria Petrioli Tofani was the first modern scholar to assess the attribution of this group, in 1976, and tentatively attributed the group to an anonymous Venetian hand in the middle of the 16th century (1). Lucia Tomasi believed the retouching of these works in tempera and watercolour to be a 19th century intervention, and stated that the drawings must originally have been much less 'heavy' (2). Although the present trio could be by another hand to those in Florence, it should be noted that they are rendered with exactly the same full-bodied application of opaque washes. The Uffizi group were acquired by Leopold de Medici in 1654, and so there is the possibility that works of this sort, with such substantial depth of colouring, were being painted in the 16th and 17th centuries rather than the result of 19th century retouching. 
 
 
 
These intriguing studies are by an as-yet-unidentified Northern Italian artist, whose idiosyncratic ornithological studies are all characterised by their intense colouring and the presentation of each bird on silhouetted sheets attached to each other. Likely inspired by Giovanni da Udine (1487-1564), whose skill as a draughtsman of birds was legendary thanks to Giorgio Vasari's mention of him in the Lives (Udine 'above all delighted in making drawings of birds of all sorts so that in a short time he produced a book so varied and beautiful, that it became Raphael's entertainment and amusement', Vasari 1966-1987, V. Giuntina, p.448). Art historians have often attributed works such as the present to Da Udine since then, though his oeuvre is now better-understood and such attributions have largely been relinquished in favour of his anonymous followers and subsequent generations of Italian artists. Another name often attached to the genre is Vincenzo Leonardi fl. c. 1621-1646), who produced hundreds of illustrations (not just of birds but of flora and other fauna) for the famous collector Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657); together with Jacopo Ligozzi, who was a considerable influence on the rising taste among the North Italian aristocracy and royalty for paintings in gouache and wash of all things botanical and scientific. 
 
The present trio of drawings are very much in this well-established tradition, demonstrating a keen eye for detail and an attention to verisimilitude as well as purely aesthetic appeal. The drawings were almost certainly once bound in an album, and were cut by an anonymous collector at some point in their history to create more decorative juxtapositions Many of the sheets, including the larger of these three, were inscribed with the name of the bird in archaic Italian, assisting modern historians in their dating of the works' creation.