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TITLE:
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Erminia and the Shepherds
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CATEGORY:
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Works on Paper (Drawings, Watercolors etc.)
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MATERIALS:
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Pen and brown ink and grey wash, extensively heightened with white, over an underdrawing in black chalk.
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MARKINGS:
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Inscribed Nasini at the lower right, and Giuseppe Nasini on the 18th century English mount.
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SIZE:
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h: 24.8 x w: 36.6 cm / h: 9.8 x w: 14.4 in
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PRICE*:
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Contact Gallery for Price
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DESCRIPTION:
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Born in the town of Castel del Piano, near Grossetto, Giuseppe Nicola Nasini trained under Ciro Ferri at the Accademia Medicea in Rome in the early 1680’s. He also studied at the Accademia di San Luca, where he won several prizes, and later worked extensively in Rome. In 1689 he entered the service of the Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici in Florence, for whom he painted a series of four large canvases on the theme of the Last Judgement for the Salone dei Novissimi of the Palazzo Pitti, executed between 1690 and 1694. Transferred at the end of the 18th century to a church in Siena, these are now lost. In the first quarter of the 18th century Nasini painted a number of works for churches in Rome, including an altarpiece of The Madonna and Child with Saints for the Chiesa dei Re Magi in 1707, and a Baptism of Christ for San Lorenzo in Lucina, completed in 1716. In 1718 Nasini was one of twelve leading painters working in Rome (including Benedetto Luti, Francesco Trevisani, Sebastiano Conca and Pier Leone Ghezzi) who were commissioned by Pope Clement XI to paint seated prophets in the oval niches of the nave of the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano. One of Nasini’s last Roman works was a frescoed Glory of Saint Anthony for the church of SS. Apostoli, painted between 1721 and 1722. By the late 1720’s Nasini had risen to a position as the leading painter in Siena, where he headed a large and busy workshop. In such works as the decoration of the Oratorio del Crocifisso and the church of the Visitation he introduced the Baroque manner of Luca Giordano to his native city. His older brother Antonio was also a painter; the two collaborated on the decoration of the vault of the church of San Gaetano di Thiene in Siena, completed in 1734.
This superb drawing is a typical example of Nasini’s draughtsmanship, which was indebted to the example of his teacher Ciro Ferri and is characterized by heavy drapery, thick pen lines and a generous application of brown wash and white heightening. The largest surviving groups of drawings by the artist are today in the Biblioteca Comunale in Siena and the Uffizi in Florence.
The subject of this drawing is taken from a minor episode in Torquato Tasso’s epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata. The daughter of the Saracen King of Antioch, Erminia has fallen in love with the Christian knight Tancred who is, however, himself enamoured of the young female warrior Clorinda. While dressed in armour as Clorinda, Erminia searches for the wounded Tancred. She comes across a group of shepherds making music, and approaches them to listen closer. The shepherds are at first frightened by her soldierly appearance, but are eventually reassured by her calm words and gentle disposition.
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PROVENANCE:
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Possibly Anne-Claude-Philippe de Tubières, Comte de Caylus, Paris (his(?) collector’s mark C [Lugt 474], formerly known as the ‘Pseudo-Crozat’ mark, stamped in black ink at the lower left).
Possibly by descent to his nephew, known as the duc de Caylus; In an English private collection by the 18th century; Private collection, England.
Colnaghi USA Ltd., New York.
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 14 January 1992, lot 144.
Private collection.
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LITERATURE:
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Michael Matile, Gusto e Passione: Italienische Zeichnungen aus der Sammlung Gadola, exhibition catalogue, Zurich, 2004, p.178, note 5, under no.83.
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EXHIBITION HISTORY:
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New York, Colnaghi, Old Master Drawings, 1984, no.24.
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