Pier Francesco Mazzucchelli, il Morazzone

Some light yellow staining particularly at the top and bottom of the sheet and to the left margin of the sheet. Laid down on thin japan paper. Four pin point holes not visible at all at the end of the tunic. Paper still light blue.
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A rare chalk study by Morazzone, preparatory for the figure of St. Carlo in his painting, Christ on the Cross with Angels adored by Carlo Borromeo, datable to 1616-1617, now in the Quadreria dell' Arcivescovado, Milan (fig.1).  The small painting (44 by 30 cm), which is considered either a bozzetto for a larger composition, now lost, or else a work executed for private devotion, has always been attributed to Morazzone.  Jacopo Stoppa, in his monograph on the artist, has related a compositional study, formerly in the Osio collection, to the same painting.¹  That drawing also bears a traditional attribution to Morazzone, written in a similar small handwriting, and is executed in point of the brush and brown ink and wash, heightened with white, on blue paper.  The figure of St. Carlo is very close to the painting and to the present study, while there are many relevant differences in the position of Christ and the angels.

1. The Osio drawing is now in the Gabinetto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome; see J. Stoppa, Il Morazzone, Milan 2003, p. 241, under no. 58, not reproduced; for a reproduction, see L' Artista e il suo atelier, exhib. cat., Rome, Palazzo Fontana di Trevi, 2006, p. 78, no. 15, p. 79 reproduced