Attributed to Francesco Torbido, called Il Moro

John Skippe (1741-1812);

Thence by descent to the Martin Family;

Mrs. Rayner Wood (1955),

and Edward Holland Martin;

His sale, London, Christie's, The Well-known Collection of Old Master Drawings Principally of the Italian School Formed in the 18th Century by John Skippe, 20 November 1958, lot 99, pl. 16 (catalogue and introduction by A. E. Popham), bought by Spiel;

Kurt Meissner (1909-2004), Zurich (L.4665);

The British Rail Pension Fund;

With Succi Ltd.;

Sale, New York, Christie's, Cabinet Italien, 28 January 1999, lot 4;

Where acquired.

Bremen, Kunsthalle, and Zurich, Kunsthaus, Handzeichnungen Alter Meister aus Schweitzer Privatbesitz, 1967, no. 71 (as Lattanzio Gambara), reproduced;

Stanford, Stanford Unversity, Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, and New York, Finch College Museum of Art, Old Master Drawings from the collection of Kurt Meissner, 1969, no. 24 (as Lattanzio Gambara), reproduced fig. 24.

This painterly brush drawing, with its heavily contrasted highlights and shadows, is clearly a modello for a painted composition showing the Holy Family, with the Christ Child laying on the ground between the Virgin and St Joseph, adored by a single kneeling shepherd. An impressive, large sheet, skilfully nuanced with the use of different shades of blue washes, and carefully hatched and outlined over the contours with the point of the brush, the drawing is enriched and enhanced by abundant and luminous white heightening.  The figures in the foreground are lit by the celestial light emanating from the Christ Child. 

In between the Madonna and St. Joseph pokes the head of a donkey, warming the Child with its breath, while the head of a cow is visible behind them. A shepherd kneels before the Child, offering up his lamb, while to the right two other shepherds are just arriving, one doffing his hat.¹  

The setting, a backdrop to the main figures, is a rustic ruin with a thatched roof. A classical column to the right is a link to the past, emblematic of the pagan world contrasting with the present scene of Christianity.² All these elements, including the shepherd doffing his hat, are reminiscent of Titian's compositions. Moreover, the poses of the Madonna and St Joseph, with their heavily draped garments adding solemnity to the figures, are closely reminiscent of Giorgione's Adorations.³ There are, therefore, strong Venetian elements in the present drawing, although its specific technique is indicative of an artist active in Verona. The most likely author appears to be Francesco Torbido, called il Moro.⁴  

Vasari, who give us substantial information on Torbido's life and career, wrote that he was first trained by Giorgione, 'il quale immitò poi sempre nel colorito e nella morbidezza' (‘whom he always imitated in the colours and the softness’).⁵ According to Vasari, when Torbido returned to Verona, he continued his training under the famous painter Liberale da Verona (1441-1526), who made him his sole heir.⁶ A meaningful stylistic comparison can be made, regarding the handling of drapery, between the present drawing and the figures of Christ and the Apostles in Torbido's lunette The Transfiguration of Christ (1526-30), now in the Alte Pinakothek, Münich, a work recorded by Vasari, and one of the most important by the artist to survive.⁷ The drawing probably dates from between 1530 and 1540.

In the eighteenth century, this sheet was in the historic Skippe collection, where it was attributed by John Skippe (1742-1811) to the Cremonese artist Lattanzio Gambara (1530-1574), under which name it was sold when the collection was finally dispersed in 1958. The catalogue for that sale was compiled by Arthur E. (Hugh) Popham (1889-1970), Keeper of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum from 1945 until his retirement in 1954. In his entry on this drawing, Popham wrote: 'There must have been some basis for the not very obvious attribution of this fine drawing to Gambara’. 

Skippe, himself an artist, formed a remarkable collection of Italian drawings. In the introduction to the 1958 catalogue, Popham wrote: 'A tradition, the precise origin of which does not seem to be known, has it that he acquired his collection of drawings from a monastery in Venice. The large proportion of Venetian drawings contained in it seems to support this tradition.'.

1. The shepherd doffing his hat is probably derived from Titian (see for instance, the Adoration of the Shepherds,in Palazzo Pitti, Florence (1532-33) and the related woodcut by Boldrini and Master IB). The same figure is seen Giovanni da Asola's (1500-1531) mural in the Scuola del Santo at Padua (1528) and later in Bassano's Adorations of the 1550s

2. The fluted column can be seen in the Titian's Adoration and the related woodcut of the early 1530s, cited in note 1

3. See for instance, Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, inv. no. 1939.1.289 (the 'Allendale Nativity'); Vienna, Kunsthistoriches Museum, inv. no. 1835 

4. The artist, whose nickname probably indicates that he was of mixed race, married the daughter of the Veronese Count Zenovello Giusti, with whom he took up residence when returning from Venice 

5. Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite De' Più Eccellenti Pittori, Scultori Ed Architettori, vol. V, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence 1880, p. 291

6.  Ibid., p. 292

7. Münich, Alte Pinakothek, inv. no. 5164; the painting was executed for the Cappella Fontanelli in the church of Santa Maria dell'Organo, Verona (1526-1530); see Vasari, Le Vite, p. 293