Lot Essay
The present drawing is a cartoon for the central scene in Salimbeni's fresco of Saint Bernardino healing a Boy hurt by a Bull painted in a lunette in the Oratorio di San Bernardino presso San Francesco, Siena (fig. 1). A study of the entire composition, squared for transfer to the cartoon, is in the Uffizi, Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Disegni dei barocceschi senesi, 1976, no. 98, fig. 99. In the Oratorio, Salimbeni painted two further lunettes: one of them, dated 1602, represents the Resuscitation of a drowned Child, and the other the Death of Tobia Tolomei. He also painted three smaller ceiling compartments, each corresponding with a lunette. A drawing for one of them, showing three putti, is in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt (inv. 551).
The outlines of the figures in the drawing were carefully incised with a stylus during the transfer process of the design onto the fresh intonaco. This method became increasingly popular in the course of the 16th century, and almost completely replaced the older, time-consuming practice of pricking the outlines and transferring the design by pouncing it with black chalk dust (spolvero). Whereas the latter method allowed an almost indefinite repetition of the design transfer, the former very often resulted in the destruction of the cartoon. This is one of the reasons for the scarcity of surviving Renaissance cartoons. The present drawing seems to be the only known cartoon by Salimbeni.
The outlines of the figures in the drawing were carefully incised with a stylus during the transfer process of the design onto the fresh intonaco. This method became increasingly popular in the course of the 16th century, and almost completely replaced the older, time-consuming practice of pricking the outlines and transferring the design by pouncing it with black chalk dust (spolvero). Whereas the latter method allowed an almost indefinite repetition of the design transfer, the former very often resulted in the destruction of the cartoon. This is one of the reasons for the scarcity of surviving Renaissance cartoons. The present drawing seems to be the only known cartoon by Salimbeni.