Pen and brown ink and brown wash, within an inscribed arch

185 x 303 mm. (7 1/4 x 11 7/8 in.)

SOLD

Born into a prominent family of majolica artists in the Marchigian town of Urbania, or Castel Durante as it was called until the seventeenth century, Picchi spent most of his career in the Marches and in Rome. While the precise location of his birth is unknown, he was probably raised in Rome where his parents ran a successful majolica bottega. In 1582 he executed his first major altarpiece, the [Immaculate Conception] for the Church of San Francesco, Urbania, followed in 1586 by a second painting for that church, depicting the [Adoration of the Magi].

Our drawing is comparable to one in technique at The National Gallery of Scotland, see National Gallery of Scotland, Catalogue of Italian Drawings, Keith Andrew, Vol. 1, page 141, as Roman School, Sixteenth Century, D815, illustrated vol 2, p. 165, and I would like to thank Aidan Weston-Lewis for making this attribution.

St. Francis of Paolo was young man of devout temperament, he became a hermit and in time he gathered around him a community known as the Minimis, whose rule was based on the Franciscan order