Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

Francesco Fontebasso

Bacchus and Ariadne

Auction Closed

January 25, 04:44 PM GMT

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Francesco Fontebasso

Venice 1707 - 1769

Bacchus and Ariadne

Pen and brown ink within partial ink framing lines, the corners scalloped

288 by 445 mm; 11⅜ by 17½ in.

With Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, July 1971;
sale, London, Sotheby’s, The Collection of David Daniels, 25April 1978, lot 35

The Burlington Magazine, 1978, p. XX;
M. Magrini, Francesco Fontebasso (1707-1769), Vicenza 1988, p. 137, under no. 45;
M. Magrini, 'Francesco Fontebasso: i disegni', Saggi e memorie di storia dell'arte, vol. 17, 1990, p. 179, no. 68, p. 364, fig. 88, reproduced and p. 172, under no. 13

Though this large and beautifully preserved sheet cannot yet be securely connected to a surviving painting or decorative project, Magrini noted its evident stylistic similarities with Fontebasso's series of engravings, the Varii Baccanali, thus providing a probable dating to the mid-1740s.¹The subject of Bacchus and Ariadne was one that the artist approached on a number of occasions, most notably in a painting in a private collection, Florence, published by Magrini in 1988, where she observed the similarities between it and the present work.²

1. Magrini, loc. cit., 1990

2. Magrini, loc. cit., 1988