Salvator Rosa, Italian 1615-1673- Study of a standing man; black chalk, pen and brown ink and wash on laid paper, 14 x 7.7 cm. Provenance: John Isaacs.; Peter Palumbo.; Sale, Sotheby's, London, 12 March 1963, lot 139B.; Anon. sale, Sotheby's...

Salvator Rosa,

Italian 1615-1673-

Study of a standing man;

black chalk, pen and brown ink and wash on laid paper, 14 x 7.7 cm.

Provenance: John Isaacs.; Peter Palumbo.; Sale, Sotheby's, London, 12 March 1963, lot 139B.; Anon. sale, Sotheby's, London, 13 December 1973, lot 38.; with Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 1974 [no.38365].; Private Collection, UK, since 1975.; By descent.

Exhibited: London, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 'Master Drawings and Prints', March-April 1974, no.4.

Literature: M. Mahoney, ‘The Drawings of Salvator Rosa’, New York and London, 1977, no.46.4 (illustrated), 'A man turned to the left resting his right arm on a high block and holding a staff in his left hand'.

Note: The present drawing relates to Rosa's preliminary studies for his set of 62 etchings of genre and military subjects entitled 'Figurine' - a group of 62 etchings of soldiers, peasants and other figures, depicted either individually or in groups of two, three or more - on which he was working from 1656 to 1657. It has been suggested that, apart from helping to spread Rosa’s fame, these 'Figurine' etchings may also have served to rebut claims, made by the artist’s critics, that he was merely a landscape painter without the ability to depict figures. As Richard Wallace has noted, ‘Rosa was very touchy about his reputation as a figure painter...With the Figurine he undoubtedly meant to show everyone, including his detractors...that he could master the human figure in an almost infinite variety of poses and expressive states.’ Often acquired as a complete set of prints and bound into albums, Rosa’s 'Figurine' etchings remained popular with collectors well into the 18th century.

This study was probably drawn from life on the same scale as the etchings in preparation for Bartsch 43. In the finished etching the soldier wears a helmet and leans on his lance which he carries in his right hand. The essential pose of the body remains the same. Rosa’s individual studies for the ‘Figurine’ are characteristic of his graphic style in general. They are all drawn with swift pen strokes and feather-light touches of wash and they all display the same economy of line from which they derive their spontaneity and vigour. Rosa’s inspiration for the ‘Figurine’ stems from the etched work of Jacques Callot (1592-1635) and Stefano della Bella (1610-1664). The figures, many of whom are soldiers, are frequently turned away from the spectator, as in this drawing, as if secretly brooding some plot or conspiracy. As Dr Mahoney pointed out in the Hayward Gallery’s 1973 ‘Salvator Rosa Exhibition Catalogue’, the ‘Figurine’ gave Rosa the opportunity ‘to express several of his most important artistic attitudes, his most obsessive desire to be known as a master of the human figure in all of its aspects… and his wish to display his originality of invention, his ‘capriccio’’.
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