(S. Matteo della Decima 1728 – Ravenna 1781)
CHRIST AND THE SAMARITAN WOMAN AT THE WELL
Pen, brown ink, washed in brown. Several antique inscriptions: ubaldo Gandolfi, ubald. etc
PROVENANCE: Private collection, Milan
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Donatella Biagi Maino, Gaetano e Ubaldo Gandolfi, Opere Scelte, catalogue of the exhibition in Cento (FE), 2002, pag. 48, fig. 33.
The drawing is not connected to any pictorial work and constitutes a work of art in its own right. There are other similar drawings by Ubaldo of this evangelical theme: the most famous are the one at the Bibliotheque de Rouen, published by P. Rosemberg and A. Schnapper (Choix des dessins anciens: Bibliotheque Municipale de Rouen, Rouen 1970, page no. 138), and the one shown at the great eighteenth-century exhibition of Emilian art in 1979, see various authors, L’Arte del Settecento Emiliano, La pittura, L’Accademia Clementina, cat. N. 217, illustration 273.
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.