Giulio Pippi, called Giulio Romano

Sir Thomas Lawrence (L.2445);
Lord Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere (L.2710b);
by descent to the 5th Earl of Ellesmere, 6th Duke of Sutherland,
his sale, London, Sotheby's, The Ellesmere Collection, Part II, 5 December 1972, lot 38;
Helene Muenstenberger;
sale, New York, Sotheby's, 30 April 1982, lot 108

 

 

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings, 1990, no. 60, reproduced

Catalogue of the Ellesmere Collection of Drawings at Bridgewater House, London 1898, no. 138;
E. Verheyen, The Palazzo Te in Mantua, Baltimore and London 1977, p. 125

Laid down. Small losses scattered, two round ones at the top towards top margin and a triangular one which has been repaired in the past. One small loss towards the lower margin to the right and another to the left margin. One on the upper part of the shoulder of the kneeling figure. Some staining and scattered foxing especially along the margins. Sold mounted and in a modern wooden and gilded frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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This drawing from the renowned Ellesmere collection is Giulio's preparatory study for one of the stucco reliefs on the ceiling of the Sala degli Stucchi, Palazzo Te, Mantua (fig. 1, upper left).  The room is oblong and the barrel-vaulted ceiling is divided into twenty-five coffers resting on each side on a small lunette surrounded by five compartments.  Frederick Hartt noted that the subjects of the compartments are taken from classical mythology, but they do not seem to follow any unified theme.  Hartt stressed that the quality and strength of Giulio's drawings for the vault are far higher than the execution of the stuccatore, who may have been Giovanni Battista Mantovano, who is mentioned by Vasari as an assistant to Niccolò da Milano in this room.¹  No records of payments survive for the Sala degli Stucchi, but most probably the work was done between 1529 and March 1530, the month in which the Emperor Charles V arrived in Mantua.  As Linda Wolk-Simon observed in the New York exhibition catalogue, this very characteristic drawing, with its precise contours and broad areas of wash to suggest shadows, shows Giulio's intention to provide a finished modello to be followed literally by the stuccatore.  It is very close stylistically to the Study of a Bull, now in the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, which is preparatory for one of the stucco decorations in the vault of the Camera dei Venti (1527-28) in Palazzo Te.² 

1.  F. Hartt, Giulio Romano, New Haven 1958, p. 149
2.  J. Cox Rearick, Giulio Romano, Master Designer, exhib. cat., New York, Hunter College, 1999, p. 92, no. 24, p. 93, reproduced