Jacopo Zucchi

Pierre Crozat (L.3612, his numbering: 39);
Sale, London, Christie's, 6 July 1976, lot 34 (as Jan Van der Straet, called Stradanus), purchased by Ralph Holland

Newcastle, 1982, no. 14, reproduced pl. II B

F. Härb in Disegno, giudizio e bella maniera, Studi sul disegno italiano in onore di Catherine Monbeig Goguel, Milan 2005, p. 110, no. 59

Laid down. Overall in quite good condition some foxing and light brown staining not very visible toward the top margin in the area of the sky, especially towards the right corner. Some small pin point stains at the bottom and very light small stains below the feet of the horse in the foreground, not very visible. A few small tears to the left margin and at the top right where the corner is missing. Another small loss along the right margin below center.
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Ralph Holland recorded in his notes that the person he outbid when he bought this drawing in 1976 was Richard Day acting for Edmund Pillsbury, who had clearly reached the same conclusion: that this was by Jacopo Zucchi, one of the artists he very much admired.  Pillsbury was the first to publish a defining group of drawings by Zucchi in Master Drawings in 1974.¹  He noted that while the early drawings were clearly more indebted to Vasari's style, his mature work became more fluid, with a 'greater freedom and abstraction' in the washes. These characteristics are very evident in the quick and vibrant execution of the present study, which can be closely compared in style to two in the Louvre: the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Bath of Bathsheba, the latter of which is preparatory for a painting in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford.²  Mr. Holland also felt that the general composition resembles yet another study by Zucchi in the Louvre: Generals receiving the Keys of a Seaport³, a very finished drawing in pen and ink and wash, extensively heightened in white, showing cavalry and foot soldiers gathered outside a seaport, and to the right foreground a river god, most probably an allegory of the Arno. 

This last Louvre sheet does not relate to any known frescoes in Palazzo Vecchio, but Pillsbury suggested that it could be linked with the commissioning from Zucchi of a monochrome painting, representing The French returning the keys of Livorno to the Florentines, which was to be hung in the Sala Grande, as part of the 'apparati festivi' erected for the wedding of Francesco de'Medici and Giovanna d'Austria, on 16 December 1565. 

Florian Härb has independently attributed this drawing to Jacopo Zucchi (see Literature) and has also related it to the same commission as the Louvre drawing, which included four chiaroscuri executed by Zucchi and Naldini. According to Härb the present drawing is likely to be a sketch for one of these monochromes, representing Cosimo de’Medici in the centre of the composition under a parasol, choosing the site or approving the building plan for the fortification of Cosmopoli, re-named Portoferraio, following its surrender to Cosimo in 1548. The reclining figure seen here in the left foreground could represent the Tyrrhenian Sea. He also points out that this “spirited” drawing already shows Zucchi’s role as an independent and creative artist within Vasari’s workshop. 

1.  E. Pillsbury, 'Drawings by Jacopo Zucchi,' Master Drawings, XII, no. 1, 1974, pp. 3-33
2.  Inv. nos. 21239 and 20768;  ibid., pls. 9a and 7a and for the connected painting, see p. 10, fig. 3
3.  Inv. no. 22597; ibid., pl. 3