Attributed to Francisco Rizi

Francesco Rizi seems to have been accustomed to make large-scale preparatory drawings with a high degree of finish like the present sheet. These must have been used as presentation drawings, though no surviving painting with this composition is known. The attribution to Rizi was suggested by Dr. Zahira Véliz, former curator of the Apelles Collection, who has pointed out that this must be a mature work by the artist, as the painterly handling of the white heightening corresponds extremely well with Rizi’s mature paintings, particularly his small scale, sketch-like works.  

The combining of the iconography of the Assumption with the Coronation of the Virgin is unusual, and could be a clue to the patronage for the project. The Virgin in the present sheet resonates strongly with the similar disposition of this key figure in several paintings of the subject by Rizi. It is worth remembering that Rizi worked at various times for the Cathedral of Toledo, specifically on the Camarín de la Virgen del Sagrario, the shrine to the Virgin which is taken in procession every feast of the Assumption (15 August).  

The present sheet can be stylistically compared with a drawing by Rizi: Martyrdom and glorification of St. Leocadia, published by Jonathan Brown in 1983, when in the collection of E. Shapiro.¹ The Martyrdom of St. Leocadia is a preparatory modello for the painting by Rizi executed for the Capuchins, Toledo, now in St. Jerónimo, Madrid.² 

The striking pictorial qualities of this very finished drawing are enhanced by its technique, characterized by abundant use of wash over a light blue washed paper.

Francisco Rizi trained with Vincente Carducho, and his work reflects the artistic changes that took place in Madrid from the mid-1640s. In his account of the life of Claudio Coello, first published in 1724, the biographer and painter Antonio Palomino writes that Coello’s master, Francisco Rizi, was in the habit of making a sketch or quick notation of whatever work he had in hand on any little piece of paper, which he would typically tear up and throw away. Coello would then collect and carefully reassemble the pieces to study them.³

1. J. Brown, 'Selected Drawings of Spanish Baroque Masters', Master Drawings, vol. XXI, no. 4 (1983), pp. 404-405, no. 11, reproduced pl. 31

2. Ibid., p. 404, fig. 1

3. A. Palomino, Lives of the Eminent Spanish Painters and Sculptors, trans. N. Ayala Mallory, Cambridge 1987, pp. 308-9