Giovanni Battista Salvi, called Sassoferrato

Alessandro Maggiori (L.3005b), his inscription in brown ink, verso: Io Alless. Maggiori com= / prai a Roma / nel / 1805;
sale, London, Christie's, 4 July 1995, lot 112

Laid down, Maggiori inscription see provenance on the backing sheet. Overall fresh and in good condition. LIttle pin point holes in one ot two places and a few tiny yellow small spots towards the lower margin. Image in the catalogue is darker, chalk more silvery
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The drawings of Sassoferrato are rare; the largest group (of over sixty sheets) is in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. The majority of those drawings are executed in the finished style seen in the present work, squared for transfer and clearly preparatory for a painting, although only around thirty can be connected with extant canvases.¹  Two particularly comparable studies at Windsor are the Study for the Head and Shoulders of the Madonna, preparatory for The Madonna adoring the Infant Christ, in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, and the Madonna and Child with Saint John, preparatory for the painting of the same subject in the Cappella di S. Rufina, in the church of S. Giovanni in Laterano, Rome.²

Sassoferrato worked mainly for private patrons and painted very few altarpieces, and his known body of work is therefore relatively small. Moreover, his compositions were not widely disseminated by contemporary engravers, or frequently discussed by critics.³  The Horvitz study has not been connected, but must be preparatory for a small, devotional work, such as the Virgin with the sleeping Christ Child, at the Galleria Nazionale, Urbino.⁴  The composition suggests that the finished work may have been oval in format.

1. A. Blunt and H.L. Cooke, The Roman Drawings of the XVII & XVIII Centuries...at Windsor Castle, London 1960, p. 102

2. Blunt and Cooke, op.cit., cat. nos. 877, 888

3. Blunt and Cooke, op.cit., p. 102

4. See F. Macé de Lépinay et al, Giovan Battista Salvi ''Il Sassoferrato'', exhibition catalogue, Milan 1990, pp. 94-5, cat. no. 94