Pen and brown ink, brown wash over red and black chalk heightened with white; the lunette with God the Father drawn on a separate sheet, cut out and pasted on to the larger sheet, squared for transfer in black chalk and some outlines incised.
Signed and dated, lower centre, [bernardinus Campus fa./1580]
172 x 292 mm.
Provenance:
Private collection, Boston
This is a finished design for the lunette canvas that formed part of Campi’s now partly-lost decoration of the Carthusian oratory of S. Colombano al Lambro outside Milan, executed between 1577 and 1581.1 While only three of the frescoes are still in situ, and further fragments survive in the Brera, Milan, the lunette is today in the parish church of Mirabello near San Colombano (Fig. 1).2 Originally, it was placed above the altarpiece of the Crucifixion, which is today in the parish church of San Colombano.
The artist’s signature and date prominently placed in the lower centre would indicate that this sheet was part of a larger design which would have included a drawing for the Crucifixion below to be submitted to the patron. Our drawing consists of two parts. Campi pasted the lunette-shaped sheet with the figure of God the Father on to a larger one with the surrounding angels carrying the Signs of the Passion. Such cut-and-paste technique can frequently be observed in the work of sixteenth-century artists, for they would not hesitate to reuse drawings previously made for another project. In fact, the characteristic figure of God the Father blessing derives from one of Campi’s most famous frescoes, the cupola decoration in the Church of S. Sigismondo, Cremona, painted over a decade earlier, between 1567 and 1570.3 A larger drawing of God the Father certainly made for that fresco was formerly in the collection of Philip Pouncey, London.4 It is thus not inconceivable that Campi, when assembling the final design for the altarpiece of the oratory of S. Colombano, took recourse to a drawing he already had in his studio.
1. We are grateful to Prof. Giulio Bora who connected our drawing with the painting in S. Colombano and kindly provided information for this entry.
2. A.M. Panni, [Distinto rapporto delle dipinture che trovansi nelle chiese della città e sobborghi di Cremona], reprint, Bergamo, 1976, vol.II, pl.XXXVIII.
3. M. Gregori et al., [I Campi],exh. cat., Santa Maria della Pietà, Cremona, 1985, p.296, no.2.10.5.
4. His sale, Sotheby’s, London, 21 January 2003, lot 11, ill.
Fig.1 Bernardino Campi, [God the Father], Mirabello Parish Church