Album of Caricature Drawings,

assembled early 18th century

This rare album of caricatures likely was assembled in the early eighteenth century, in response to growing interest in Guercino’s drawings among collectors. The Princeton album contains thirty caricature drawings, twenty-three of which can be confidently assigned to the artist. The remaining seven are later additions and are probably by members of his workshop or imitators. The album opens with a handwritten title page that includes a watercolor portrait of Guercino; following is a three-page introductory essay, comprising a short biography of the artist and a brief discussion of the caricature genre. As can be inferred from the text of the introduction, the compiler of the album was a painter from Bologna, perhaps working for an art dealer. The album has an intriguing history. By the 1730s it was probably owned by the Florentine nobleman, diplomat, painter, and collector Francesco Maria Niccolò Gabburri. Gabburri added two handwritten inscriptions in brown ink to two pages of the album. The one shown here makes reference to Baron Philipp von Stosch, an antiquarian from Prussia who settled in Florence in 1731 and was one of Gabburri’s acquaintances. Sometime after Gabburi’s death his entire collection was sold to a British art dealer and transferred to England. According to a series of notations in different hands on the album’s flyleaf, the British painter Sir Joshua Reynolds later owned it. In 1928, Dan Fellows Platt purchased the album in London for thirty-five pounds.