Study of a Priestess holding a Caduceus
Brown ink and wash on laid paper with a grapes and vine watermark, 6 5/8 x 6 1/2 inches (168 x 164 mm). Laid down to Fellows watermarked wove paper, with uniform age tone, areas of light discoloration, and attenuation of pigment. Unevenly trimmed margins, and paper tape remnant from having been tipped-into a scrap book on top left corner, verso. The paper matrix to which the drawing is mounted has scrolling script in ink, which shows through to recto. Contemporary inscription in pencil, verso.
Ex-collection of cellist and scholar, János Scholz. Born in Hungary in 1903, Scholz took up residency and citizenship in the United States as fascism emerged in Europe. During his long life, Scholz assembled an impressive collection of Italian drawings, notably a selection of Venitian school works by masters including Tintoretto, Veronese and Tiepolo. In the years directly preceeding the Second World War, he focused his area of interest on collecting images relating to the theater, and in 1944 he purchased a large cache of Italian drawings, including 49 Bibienas, which had previously been in the famed Giovanni Piancastelli collection. Scholz bequeathed his collection to the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, which they aquired in 1993. In 1977, Charles Ryskamp, then director of the Morgan Library, referred to the Scholz collection as "certainly the finest private collection of Italian drawings in America and one of the finest anywhere in the world."
Item number: 330
Price: $650.00
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