Lot Essay
Of similar technique and composition to a group of sheets the majority of which were formerly in the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden, and then passed by descent through the Azzolini and Odescalchi families, M. Mahoney, The Drawings of Salvator Rosa, New York, 1977, pp. 147-155, nos. 3.1-3.24. Mahoney notes that these sheets are similar to a number of drawings by Micco Spadaro (Mahoney, op. cit., figs. 3.1A-E) and probably date from the period before 1635 when both men were working in the studio of Aniello Falcone. The style of these drawings is unusual in Rosa's work, and may reflect the influence of Falcone's pen studies. Like the present drawing, the sheets in this group are all of small size and have often been irregularly cut, suggesting that they were split at an early date from larger sheets of studies probably drawn from life.