Andrea Boscoli um 1560 – Florenz – 1607 Allegorical group of figures

Pen-and-ink drawing in brown, brown wash, on laid paper, backed with fine Japan tissue (1600/05). 25.7 x 17.8 cm (sheet size). Signed in the image lower right. Verses from Torquato Tasso’s “La Gerusalemme liberata” (The Liberated Jerusalem) at the top and bottom.

Period

15th-18th Century

Technique

Works on paper

Details

Literatur:
Julian Brooks, Andrea Boscoli’s “Loves of Gerusalemme Liberata”, in: Master Drawings, 38, New York 2000, S. 452, Fig. 8.

Provenienz:
Sotheby’s, London, Auktion, 3.7.1996, Los 114 (als Teil eines 2 Bll. umfassenden Konvoluts zu “Gerusalemme liberata”);
Privatbesitz, Süddeutschland.

Description

Design, probably for an undocumented print, for Torquato Tasso’s epic poem “La Gerusalemme liberata”. In his essay, Julian Brooks refers to four drawings by Boscoli that deal with the episode of the lovesick Erminia. Here she is depicted in the centre, seated next to her horse, telling the old shepherd about her escape from a troop of Christian soldiers who had mistaken her for her rival Clorinda. Erminia decides to join the shepherds and takes off her armour. From then on, she spends her days tending the sheep and writing sonnets for her beloved Tankred on the bark of the trees.
The pose of the horse can be found again on a study sheet by Boscoli, formerly in the collection of Jak Katalan, New York (see William Griswold and Linda Walk-Simon (eds.), Sixteenth-Century Italian drawings in New York Collections, New York 1994, p. 46, cat. no. 40). – Slightly browned. Paper with small thinning in places and somewhat pressed. Occasional small marginal tears. In good condition for age.