Mattia Jona La Portantina +39 02 8053315 mattjona@mattiajona.com


 
BALDASSARRE FRANCESCHINI called Il Volterrano
(Volterra 1611 - Florence 1689)
A PAIR OF DRAWINGS: A) STUDY OF A VIRILE FIGURE SEEN FROM THE BACK B) DOUBLE STUDY OF A MALE RIGHT LEG

A) Study of a virile figure seen from the back. On the verso Male torso study and three left arm studies. Black chalk heightened with white on grayish paper; 258 x 382 mm.
See here images of the recto and verso
The study on the recto, as well as the one on the verso of the sheet, are preparatory for two of the figures that appear in the fresco depicting the Coronation of the Virgin in the dome of the Cappella Niccolini, in Santa Croce, Florence.

B) Double Study of a Male Right Leg. On the verso Study of a helmet and a cuirass. Black chalk heightened with white on grayish paper, some red chalk on the verso; 255 x 405 mm.
See here images of the recto and verso

 

A sculptor's son, Il Volterrano first studied with Cosimo Daddi in Volterra and then with Matteo Rosselli in Florence. He executed his first frescoes, in 1631 and 1632, in his native town. Back in Florence in 1636, he worked in the workshop of Giovanni da San Giovanni and, after the death of the master, he was commissioned by don Lorenzo de’ Medici to create frescoes celebrating the Medici ancestry for their villa La Petraia; he finished them twelve years later.
Medici patronage continued, as did commissions from other distinguished families, making Volterrano one of the Baroque era's most successful painters in Florence. In 1652, the Marchese Filippo Niccolini, planning to employ Franceschini on the frescoes for the cupola and back-wall of his chapel in Santa Croce, Florence, dispatched him to various parts of Italy to improve his style. The painter, in a tour that lasted some months, took a serious interest in the schools of Parma and Bologna, and, to some extent, in the Romano-Tuscan style of Pietro da Cortona. He then undertook the paintings commissioned by Niccolini. These are his best works and the most well-known. One of his latest works is the fresco in the cupola of the Annunziata, Florence, which occupied him for two years towards 1683.