Castiglione, Giovanni Benedetto. (1609 - 1664). "A heathen sacrifice" - Original Drawing. Study of Figures, pen and ink on paper, 17.75 x 20.25 cm [7 x 8 in], ca. 1650. With the collection mark lower left of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792), this work thought to be Castiglione's "A heathen sacrifice" listed as #55 in the second day of the Reynolds sale catalogue. With significant areas of paper loss and repairs, rebacked with areas of support sheet showing through. Archivally matted and set in a hand-gilted finished-corner frame under UV plexiglass.
The Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman of the Genoese school is best known now for his elaborate engravings, as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping, and for the "course fluidity" of his distinctive drawing style, the latter being on full display in the present fine example. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le Benédette. A brilliant draftsman, Castiglione pioneered the development of the oil sketch (often using a mixture of mediums) as a finished work. He returned to the same subjects, including that of sacrifice, over and over again, but with significantly different compositions each time. "Collectors and and connoisseurs traveling to Venice...marveled at the brio and verve of execution...even if the works did not conform to the idealizing classicism favoured by many of Castiglione's contemporaries....they sensed that his drawings were at their best when they juxtaposed highly descriptive elements with deliberately unfinished passages." We can date the present drawing to the early to mid 1650s when the style of Castiglione's figures took on a marked and newly pronounced elongation. "In part this was a re-engagement with Genoese late Mannerism, reprising a brief phases seen in the early 1640s but now taking the elegance of Biscaino, Castello and, from a century earlier, Parmigianino to such extremes that the results appear tortured rather than graceful." (Timothy J. Standring and Martin Clayton, "Castiglione: Lost Genius," p. 12, p. 129)
The Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman of the Genoese school is best known now for his elaborate engravings, as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping, and for the "course fluidity" of his distinctive drawing style, the latter being on full display in the present fine example. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le Benédette. A brilliant draftsman, Castiglione pioneered the development of the oil sketch (often using a mixture of mediums) as a finished work. He returned to the same subjects, including that of sacrifice, over and over again, but with significantly different compositions each time. "Collectors and and connoisseurs traveling to Venice...marveled at the brio and verve of execution...even if the works did not conform to the idealizing classicism favoured by many of Castiglione's contemporaries....they sensed that his drawings were at their best when they juxtaposed highly descriptive elements with deliberately unfinished passages." We can date the present drawing to the early to mid 1650s when the style of Castiglione's figures took on a marked and newly pronounced elongation. "In part this was a re-engagement with Genoese late Mannerism, reprising a brief phases seen in the early 1640s but now taking the elegance of Biscaino, Castello and, from a century earlier, Parmigianino to such extremes that the results appear tortured rather than graceful." (Timothy J. Standring and Martin Clayton, "Castiglione: Lost Genius," p. 12, p. 129)
Castiglione, Giovanni Benedetto. (1609 - 1664). "A heathen sacrifice" - Original Drawing. Study of Figures, pen and ink on paper, 17.75 x 20.25 cm [7 x 8 in], ca. 1650. With the collection mark lower left of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792), this work thought to be Castiglione's "A heathen sacrifice" listed as #55 in the second day of the Reynolds sale catalogue. With significant areas of paper loss and repairs, rebacked with areas of support sheet showing through. Archivally matted and set in a hand-gilted finished-corner frame under UV plexiglass.
The Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman of the Genoese school is best known now for his elaborate engravings, as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping, and for the "course fluidity" of his distinctive drawing style, the latter being on full display in the present fine example. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le Benédette. A brilliant draftsman, Castiglione pioneered the development of the oil sketch (often using a mixture of mediums) as a finished work. He returned to the same subjects, including that of sacrifice, over and over again, but with significantly different compositions each time. "Collectors and and connoisseurs traveling to Venice...marveled at the brio and verve of execution...even if the works did not conform to the idealizing classicism favoured by many of Castiglione's contemporaries....they sensed that his drawings were at their best when they juxtaposed highly descriptive elements with deliberately unfinished passages." We can date the present drawing to the early to mid 1650s when the style of Castiglione's figures took on a marked and newly pronounced elongation. "In part this was a re-engagement with Genoese late Mannerism, reprising a brief phases seen in the early 1640s but now taking the elegance of Biscaino, Castello and, from a century earlier, Parmigianino to such extremes that the results appear tortured rather than graceful." (Timothy J. Standring and Martin Clayton, "Castiglione: Lost Genius," p. 12, p. 129)
The Italian Baroque artist, painter, printmaker and draftsman of the Genoese school is best known now for his elaborate engravings, as the inventor of the printmaking technique of monotyping, and for the "course fluidity" of his distinctive drawing style, the latter being on full display in the present fine example. He was known as Il Grechetto in Italy and in France as Le Benédette. A brilliant draftsman, Castiglione pioneered the development of the oil sketch (often using a mixture of mediums) as a finished work. He returned to the same subjects, including that of sacrifice, over and over again, but with significantly different compositions each time. "Collectors and and connoisseurs traveling to Venice...marveled at the brio and verve of execution...even if the works did not conform to the idealizing classicism favoured by many of Castiglione's contemporaries....they sensed that his drawings were at their best when they juxtaposed highly descriptive elements with deliberately unfinished passages." We can date the present drawing to the early to mid 1650s when the style of Castiglione's figures took on a marked and newly pronounced elongation. "In part this was a re-engagement with Genoese late Mannerism, reprising a brief phases seen in the early 1640s but now taking the elegance of Biscaino, Castello and, from a century earlier, Parmigianino to such extremes that the results appear tortured rather than graceful." (Timothy J. Standring and Martin Clayton, "Castiglione: Lost Genius," p. 12, p. 129)