Baldassare Peruzzi

John Skippe (on his mount),
by descent to Mrs Rayner Wood,
by descent to Edward Holland Martin,
his sale, London, Christie's, 20-21 November 1958, lot 261 D (as Venetian School, 16th Century, part of a group of four, purchased by Schidlof)

Laid down on the Skippe mount (see Provenance). Some light brown stains: one at the level of the window behind the Virgin and a few lighter ones scattered around. Surface dirt, but overall the drawing is in quite good condition.
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The attribution of this fine compositional study to Peruzzi was first suggested by Dr. Alessandro Cecchi, and has subsequently been endorsed by a number of other scholars.   The complex architectural background and perspective seen in this complete study for a lunette depicting the Annunciation are typical of the style of Peruzzi, who was an architect as well as a painter, and this rare sheet is an important addition to the artist's corpus of drawings. 

The drawing does not appear to be connected to any of Peruzzi's known paintings, but stylistically it is closely comparable with a sheet in the British Museum, The Virgin and Child with SS. Bernardino and Catherine of Siena, which was attributed to the artist by A.E. Popham.¹  As Philip Pouncey and John Gere noted, the Saints represented in the British Museum drawing suggest it relates to a Sienese commission, and the drawing seems to be a mature work, most likely dating from the artist's late Sienese period, 1527-circa 1533.  The facial features of the Virgin in both sheets are closely comparable - and characteristic of Peruzzi - and the fluent handling of the pen and ink is very similar both in the occhiellature and in the repeated use of parallel hatchings in areas of shadows.  Another interesting feature is the pentimento in the left hand of the kneeling angel, whose classic hair style, reminiscent of the antique, is often seen in Peruzzi’s female figures.   

Another drawing that is stylistically close to this is a sheet, in a private collection, with a very enigmatic subject: An artist in a landscape drawing a gentleman who opens his doublet and shirt to reveal an image of a female figure.²  That drawing, which was attributed to Peruzzi by Philip Pouncey, is also datable to the end of the artist’s life, circa 1532-35.  In these final years, Peruzzi travelled between Rome and Siena working not only as a painter but also as an architect, most notably on the completion of the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome.  It is from this late period of Peruzzi's illustrious career that this important, newly discovered drawing of The Annunciation must surely date.

¹ P. Pouncey and J. A. Gere, Italian Drawings in the department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Raphael and his Circle, London 1962, vol. I, p. 148, no. 249, reproduced vol. II, pl. 231

² The Study of Italian Drawings, The contribution of Philip Pouncey, exhib. cat., London, British Museum, 1994, p. 110, no. 136, reproduced