Pupini (Biagio, circa 1496-circa 1575). Nymph pouring water from an urn, circa 1530-40

Attributed to Biagio Pupini (circa 1496-circa 1575). Nymph pouring water from an urn aided by putti, after Giulio Romano (1499-1546), pen and brown ink, brown wash with lead white and white chalk on pale blue paper, or 'carta azzurra', with a further composition to verso of the Madonna and Child with infant Saint John, brush and brown wash, and lead white and chalk, inscribed in an early hand to recto lower right in brown ink: R. Urbino, and with collector's mark (Lugt 2092) to lower right corner of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), some minor marks to sheet edges, sheet size 270 x 397 mm (10 5/8 x 15 5/8 ins), together with the lower edge only (23 x 287 mm) of an old (17th century) laid paper mount for the present work, with double rule border and inscription 'Raffaello d'Urbino' to centre and 'iv 3' towards right corner in brown ink, and 'Biaggio' in a later hand in dark brown ink to the left

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Provenance: Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), court painter to Charles II of England (Lugt 2092); Private collection, Wiltshire, England.

Lely was one of the first great collectors of art in Britain, amassing an important collection that included 10,000 prints and drawings and nearly 600 paintings.

The present work is a copy after the painted ceiling caisson, or sunken panel, in the Sala di Amore e Psiche at the Palazzo del Te in Mantua, Italy, by Giulio Romano (1499-1546), depicting a nymph pouring water from an urn aided by putti, completed in 1528. Biagio Pupini is mentioned only incidentally by Vasari in his life of Bartolomeo Ramenghi (called Bagnacavallo, 1484-1542), with whom he worked in Bologna. Pupini also worked alongside Girolamo da Carpi in 1537 on the frescoes of the Sala delle Vigne at the d’Este villa of Belriguardo, outside Ferrara. Malvasia's biography of the artist in his Pitture di Bologna (1686) lists several paintings by Pupini, almost all of which are lost or destroyed. As a consequence it is Pupini's distinctive drawings, often on prepared or coloured paper and employing extensive white heightening, which reflect the influence of both Raphael and Polidoro da Caravaggio, Parmigianino and Girolamo da Carpi. Pupini is known to have drawn numerous copies after the antique masters, as well as Raphael and his followers.

The only major Renaissance artist who was a native of Rome, Giulio Romano was Raphael's chief pupil and assistant and later one of the outstanding figures of Mannerist art and architecture. Giulio began working for Raphael around 1515, when he was still very young; after the master's death in 1520 he became his main artistic executor, completing a number of his unfinished works.