Currently not on view
Study for a Decorative Wall Frieze with Female Supporting Figures,
ca. 1570–75
Marco da Faenza (Marco Marchetti), Italian, 1528–1588
x1948-755
These two decorative studies document the work of Marco Marchetti, an artist celebrated in his own time for fresco projects with lively and inventive grotesques, which he executed in palaces in Rome, Florence, and his hometown of Faenza. Both sketches are preliminary ideas for an elaborate wall frieze carried out by Marchetti for the Faenza residence of nobleman Cavalier Silvestro Rondinini.
These drawings are also important for the history of collecting: they were annotated by Father Sebastiano Resta, a renowned and discerning collector of drawings in seventeenth-century Italy. One of the sheets bears a letter written by Resta to Father Giuseppe Del Voglia in Palermo, urging him to include the drawings in his album of decorative drawings, as examples of Marchetti’s draftsmanship. In the letter, which is signed and dated 1691 and sent from Faenza, Resta explains that he had recently obtained these drawings from the local painter Tommaso Missiroli. Only in 1981 were the two studies reunited in Princeton.
These drawings are also important for the history of collecting: they were annotated by Father Sebastiano Resta, a renowned and discerning collector of drawings in seventeenth-century Italy. One of the sheets bears a letter written by Resta to Father Giuseppe Del Voglia in Palermo, urging him to include the drawings in his album of decorative drawings, as examples of Marchetti’s draftsmanship. In the letter, which is signed and dated 1691 and sent from Faenza, Resta explains that he had recently obtained these drawings from the local painter Tommaso Missiroli. Only in 1981 were the two studies reunited in Princeton.
Information
Title
Study for a Decorative Wall Frieze with Female Supporting Figures
Dates
ca. 1570–75
Medium
Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash over traces of black chalk, on beige laid paper
Dimensions
17.2 × 21.9 cm (6 3/4 × 8 5/8 in.)
frame: 32.1 × 39.7 × 2.9 cm (12 5/8 × 15 5/8 × 1 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895
Object Number
x1948-755
Marks/Labels/Seals
Watermark: Motif [undecipherable] within circle
Reference Numbers
Gibbons 426
Culture
Materials
Tommaso Missiroli, called Il Villano (ca. 1636–1699), Faenza; Padre Sebastiano Resta, script (L. 2992a) recto, bottom edge, in brown ink; Giuseppe Del Voglia, Palermo; Richard Ederheimer, New York; his sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, Nov. 6–7, 1924, lot 244 (as “Marco Marchetti”); purchased there by Dan Fellows Platt, stamps (L. 750a and L. 2066b) on mount, lower left, in blue.
- Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977).
- Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 44, cat. no. 17; p. 45 (illus.); p. 46 (verso illus.); p. 257-258, app. no. 86; p. 258 (illus.)
