From Taddeo to Tiepolo: The Dr. John O’Brien Collection of Old Master Drawings

Francesco Zuccarelli

Portrait of an Elderly Woman Holding a Cat

Auction Closed

January 27, 09:35 PM GMT

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Francesco Zuccarelli

Pitigliano, Umbria 1702 - 1788 Florence

Portrait of an Elderly Woman Holding a Cat

Black chalk heightened with white chalk on buff paper

229 by 180 mm; 9 by 7 in

Edmond and Jules de Goncourt;
their sale, Paris, Hotel Drouot, 15-17 February 1897, lot 42 (as Chardin);
Private Collection, France;
with Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich,
where acquired, 1990

E. and J. de Goncourt, L'art du dixhuitième siècle, Paris 1880, pl. 89 (as Chardin);
J. Leautaud, 'Some lesser known aspects of Chardin,' International Studio, August 1927, pp. 13-19, reproduced

This vigorously executed sheet, drawn in a combination of black and white chalk, was formerly attributed to Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin but is now, alongside other stylistically comparable sheets, such as a Portrait of an Old Man in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago¹, given to Francesco Zuccarelli.

Zuccarelli is widely regarded as the pre-eminent landscape artist to have emerged from his adopted city of Venice in the mid-eighteenth century, and the present work is a significant and relatively rare departure from the landscape drawings with which he is most frequently associated.

^1. Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, inv. no. 1960.560