Vignali drawing

JACOPO VIGNALI          Pratovecchio, Arezzo 1592  –  1664 Florence

A Young Woman Seen in profile towards the right.

Drawing in red chalk, preparatory for Vignali’s painting The Finding of Moses, c. 1645 (now at Il Seminario Maggiore di Firenze). From the collection of Daisy Mei Gentilucci (1908- 2005), Florence and her descendants.

Bibliography: G. Pagliarulo, Per Jacopo Vignali disegnatore; un percorso fra gli studi di figura, in “Paragone”, third series, 64, 2013, 107 (755) p. 29, plate 30a.  M. C. Fabbri, in Il Rigore e la Grazia. La Campagna di San Benedetto Bianco nel Seicento fiorentino, exhibition catalogue (Florence, Palazzo Pitti, Museo degli Argenti, Cappella Palatina, 22 October 2015- 17 May 2016) edited by A. Grassi, M. Scipioni and G. Serafini, Livorno 2015, p.142.

Vignali began his career in the studio of Matteo Rosselli and by the second decade of the 17^th century began to produce independent works of his own. By 1614 he had begun working in fresco whose techniques he had learned from Rosselli. His frescoes for the Confraternity of San Benedetto Bianco, his decorations for Casa Buonarotti and his work for the Medici were among his important commissions in the 1620s.

Vignali was drawn to subjects of intense religious experience as well as poetically observed subjects from mythology and the Old Testament. Our drawing seizes upon a moment in the story of the finding of Moses; the young woman at the left of the painting holds the basket with the infant Moses while Pharoah’s daughter prepares to pick up the child. In our drawing the young woman gazes down in the direction of the basket.

Although the infant is not included in the drawing, the wonder and excitement of the moment is apparent in the radiant face of the young woman as she looks down at the infant Moses.           

280 x 196 mm    11 x 7 11/16 inches