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UBALDO GANDOLFI (San Matteo della Decima, Bologna 1728 - Ravenna 1781) SOULS IN PURGATORY
Black chalk, heightened with white, on light brown tinted paper; 320 x 440 mm. Watermark: Gonfalone (Crossed St. Peter's keys with letters G L). The drawing is connected with the lower part of the painting 'Bl. John Buralli begs the Blessed Virgin to intercede for souls in Purgatory' (c. 1772), Bologna, Saint Bartholomew Church. See Donatella Biagi Maino, 'Ubaldo Gandolfi', Turin, 1990; no. 61, illustrated. For another version of the drawing see Prisco Bagni, 'I Gandolfi, affreschi, dipinti, bozzetti, disegni', Bologna, 1992; no. 133, illustrated.

Member of a prominent family of artists in late eighteenth-century Bologna, Ubaldo Gandolfi studied, as his younger brother Gaetano, at the Accademia Clementina, where he was taught by Ercole Graziani II, Felice Torelli and Ercole Lelli. Possibly he spent some of the time travelling, for Oretti states that he ‘vidde Firenze, Venezia, ed altre famose scuole’. In 1760 Ubaldo was elected to the Accademia Clementina and appointed to the post of instructor of drawing. Ubaldo worked primarily as a religious painter, producing altarpieces for country churches and devotional paintings for city patrons. He is documented as a sculptor, and a few works executed in terracotta are known.