Cigoli drawing

LODOVICO CARDI, called IL CIGOLI   Castello di Cigoli 1559 - 1613 Rome

Seated Male Nude.

Drawing in red chalk. Inscribed verso: ‘Di Giovanni Navarette”. Watermark: Bird above three mounts within a double circle, similar to Woodward 83 (datable Rome 1564).

Cigoli is one of the most important artists at the beginning of the Baroque in Florence. In the 1580s, assimilating a variety of influences - Allori, Bronzino, Santi di Tito and Federico Zuccaro - he began a remarkable group of paintings, portraits as well as religious subjects.

By 1604 Cigoli was in Rome. He was introduced to Cardinal Scipione Borghese for whom he executed several commissions. His architectural activities include projects for the façade of the cathedral in Florence and the façade of St. Peter’s in Rome.

This extraordinarily direct figure study bears an old attribution on the verso to Juan Fernandez de Navarette (1526-1579) and the number 9 in a square recto. Almost identical annotations appear on other drawings by Cigoli.

The wiry contours and slender proportions are entirely devoid of rhetorical effect, and the sidelong glance suggests a psychological dimension rarely seen in such drawings.

415 x 258 mm                     16 3/8 x 10 3/16 inches