Jacopo Zanguidi Dit Bertoja (1544 - 1574) - Important 16th Century Drawing

Jacopo Zanguidi BERTOJA (1544-1574)
Combat of five figures, bas-relief from the School of Athens after Raphael

43×34cm

Interesting thing

According to Professor David Ekserdjian, the inscription on our sheet

« un suo discepolo Gio [vanni] Bandini Scultore fiorTentino
qui ha voluto [??] mostrare l'una delle suffie ['zuffa' = combat] di Bandinelli ma hò visto l'istessa suffia/ nel schizzo di lapis rosso di Raffael d'Urbino ch[e]
hà il Sig [nore] OR figlio di (??) Arcangelo Spagna »

basically means that the writer of the inscription thinks that this sheet is by Bandini, copying his master Bandinelli, but its author adds that he has seen the same composition in a red chalk drawing by Raphael belonging to Arcangelo Spagna. This drawing is in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, and its earliest provenance is to Wicar, but this inscription means it is almost certain - unless there were two such red chalk drawings - that it previously belonged to Spagna!

Provenance
Former Charles Molinier (1845-1910) collection, stamped lower left (Lugt 2917);
Private collection, France

Related work
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino called Raphael, Combat of five men, c.1508-10, red chalk over blind
stylus, 37,7 x 27,9 cm; N° WA1846.193; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.