Giuseppe Cesari (Italian 1568-1640) Bearded Man

Artist: Giuseppe Cesari (Italian 1568-1640).
Title: Study of a bearded man (Circa 1612).
Medium: Sanguine chalk on laid paper.
Framed Size: Height 17 cm x Width 14.5 cm x Depth 1.5 cm.
Image Size: Height 7.5 cm x Width 4.5 cm.
Condition: The drawing is in excellent condition with collectors inventory numbers verso as well as other annotations (please see images) The framing is in excellent condition and was undertaken in the early 1980s (This has been confirmed with the original frame maker).
Provenance: Probably André Salomon L.1304 ( His written mark (Probably) verso along with inventory “Property of a Gentleman” sale, Christie’s London 15th April 1980, part Lot 87.
Possibly Sir Warwick Oswald Fairfax.
Wright Gallery Fine Art.

The drawing was purchased at the “Property of a Gentleman” sale, Christie’s London 15th April 1980. Correspondence was initiated with the recognised authority on Giuseppe Cesari and the scholar that was engaged in the cataloguing of the Christies sale, Professor Herwarth Röttgen.

Professor Röttgen was contacted regarding the authorship of the work along with a drawing from the same collection by Cristoforo Roncalli after a private suggestion was made by a well-published scholar and Christie’s representative. Written correspondence between Wright Gallery Fine Art and Professor Herwarth Röttgen was initiated on the 12th of July 2019. After time was given to review the work and known provenance, it is the scholarly opinion of Professor Herwarth Röttgen that chalk on paper study of a bearded man is by the hand of Giuseppe Cesari, called Cavaliere d’Arpino (1568 - 1640).

Professor Röttgen has indicated that the drawing had been mistakenly left out of his published catalogues on Giuseppe Cesari, furthermore, Professor Röttgen has indicated that the drawing is to date to about 1612 and be included near the numbers 441-448 in the third volume of Cesari’s drawings. We are thankful to Professor Herwarth Röttgen for generously taking the time to establish the attribution of this work. A written and illustrated transcript of the correspondence is included with the sale of this drawing.

About: Giuseppe Cesari, called Cavaliere d’Arpino (1568 - 1640) was an Italian Mannerist painter, active mainly in Rome. He had an enormous reputation in the first two decades of the 17th century when he gained some of the most prestigious commissions of the day, most notably the designing of the mosaics for the dome of St Peter’s (1603–12). His work remained largely untouched by the innovations of Caravaggio (who was briefly his assistant) or that of Annibale Carracci.

He was primarily a fresco painter, but he also did numerous cabinet pictures of religious or mythological scenes. Cesari’s alternative name, Cavaliere d’Arpino (Knight of Arpino), refers to the title he was awarded by Pope Clement VIII and to his place of birth, between Rome and Naples. The inscription 252 pertains to a 17th-century collector cataloguing details.