Anonymous, French Printmaker

Portrait of Giovanni-Francesco Grimaldi [Il Bolognese]

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Catalogue Number:
45

Artist:
After Agostino Masucci (1691-1758)

Title:
Portrait of Giovanni-Francesco Grimaldi [Il Bolognese]

Work Type:
Drawing

Date:
18th Century

Culture:
French

Medium:
graphite and red chalks on laid paper

Dimensions:
12″ h and 7 3/4″ w

Inscriptions and Annotations:
inscribed with FRANCISQUE GRIMALDI. Dit. BOLOGNÈSE, Peintre de Bologne

Annotated at lower left with BY-CARRACCI (ANIBATE), 1560-1609, RED + BL.CRAY; Verso annotated J532 (in oval) (graphite)

Watermark:
none

Condition:
generally clean, intact, stable

Credit Line:
Cornell College, Gift of Robert Sonnenschein II

Accession Year:
1951

Object Number:
1951.45

Commentary:
The drawing is annotated with an attribution to Annibale Carracci; however, the work itself is based on a painting of Giovanni-Francesco Grimaldi (1606-1680) in the Accademia di San Luca and dated to 1680, where he was principe (director) in 1666.  This work has not been attributed.  The Alasko company attributed the work as being after a Agostino Masucci portrait of Grimaldi for Nicola Pio’s biographies at the Nationalmuseum Sweden (Clark, 32).   Despite the similar subject, the work seems to have a closer stylistic affinity with the painting in Rome’s Accademia. CMP

Anthony Morris Clark, “The Portraits of Artists Drawn for Nicola Pio,” In Studies in Roman Eighteenth-Century Painting (Washington, DC: Decatur House Press, 1981), 20-47.