Notes on the results of research work for the scientific catalogue of 17th century Italian drawings in the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts
Andrea Czére
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary
A project for the scientific cataloguing of the collection of the approximately 8000 drawings of the Budapest museum has been running for several years. At present the section of 17th c. Italian drawings has been finished. The Bolognese school prevails in it, and the second biggest is the Roman school, the Florentine, Venetian, Neapolitan and Lombard ones being less numerously represented. Two thirds of the 17th c. Italian drawings derive from the Esterházy-collection, purchased by the Hungarian state in 1870, and one sixth derive from Stephan Delhaes, whose bequest dates from 1901. The rest is the result of later purchases.
The catalogue of the 17th c. Italian drawings numbers more than 350 pieces according to my manuscript. 90 sheets earlier included in this stock proved to be 16th or 18th c. Italian pieces. One example is a drawing by Raffaellino da Reggio, which was earlier regarded as an anonymous 18th c. sheet. Among 17th c. anonymous Italian sheets many pieces could be precisely identified as works by the 18th century Ubaldo Gandolfi, Gaetano Zompini, Giambettino Cignaroli, Antonio Consetti etc., to be included in the relevant catalogue volumes to come. Some 30 drawings earlier attributed to Carlo Maratta are in fact preparatory for existing paintings by his pupil, Agostino Masucci. Several pieces had to be separated from the Italian block and added to French, German or Netherlandish works. Many old attributions found in the collection of the 17th c. Italian drawings had to be altered, though two thirds of them could be maintained. It has been necessary to reconsider the attribution of some 220 sheets out of the stock of 440 pieces, constituting the original collection of the 17th c. Italian drawings. 90 of them are now added to other centuries or other national schools. The number of anonymous sheets has been reduced from 115 to 44. One third of the drawings included in the manuscript has never been published before, amounting to some 135 pieces. Beyond copies, sometimes also interesting, about 30 pieces deserve greater attention, identified as works by well-known Bolognese, Roman and Genovese masters such as Pietro Faccini, the Siranis, Giacinto Calandrucci, Gugliemo Cortese, Camillo Rusconi, Giovanni Andrea Ansaldo etc. Some formerly anonymous sheets can serve as starting points for the reconstruction of the oeuvre of some hitherto hardly known lesser masters such as Cesare Baglioni, Marcantonio Bellavia, Camillo Berlinghieri.
To illustrate a few interesting examples, grouped according to the method used for their identification, drawings by L. Carracci, S. Cantarini, GF. Grimaldi, S. Badalocchio, G.N. Nasini, C. Allori, D. Crespi, G.M. Morandi, G. Calandrucci, F. Albani, Guercino, G.A. Burrini, P.F. Mola, Baciccio, P.F. Cittadini, C. Maratta, G.A. Ansaldo and G.B. Castiglione will be shown. The latter two will be treated from the point of view of their newly identified subject-matter.