A Fine Line: Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

Carlo Alberto Baratta

Recto: The Death of Hector Verso: Two Battling Figures with Shields and Swords

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Auction Closed

July 7, 10:53 AM GMT

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Carlo Alberto Baratta

Genoa 1754 - 1815

Recto: The Death of Hector

Verso: Two Battling Figures with Shields and Swords

Point of the brush and black wash heightened with white on dark blue-green paper (recto); black chalk (verso)

231 by 298 mm

With Colnaghi, New York and London, An Exhibition of Master Drawings, June-July 2000, cat. no. 32,
where acquired by Dr. John O'Brien (L.4230)

M. Newcome Schleier and G. Grasso, Giovanni David, Pittore e incisore della famiglia Durazzo, Turin 2003, p. 11, reproduced fig. S5 (as Carlo Alberto Baratta, The Death of Germanicus (?))

This dramatic baroque drawing, depicting the Death of Hector, is by the Genoese artist, Carlo Alberto Baratta. Baratta was a fresco painter and stage designer as well as a prolific draughtsman and engraver. His style is extremely reminiscent of his fellow Genoese painter, Giovanni David (1743-1790), whose work had an enormous influence on the slightly younger Baratta. Mary Newcome Schleier remarks on the similarities between the artists, who both treated their subjects with a certain sensitivity, creating charismatic figures and compositions with vivid and strong effects of colour.