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Drunken Silenus and Decorative Sketches: Studies for the Tazza Farnese (recto); Two Putti Fighting: Study for the Galleria Farnese (verso)
Inscriptions
Inscribed recto, lower right, in pen and brown ink (by Pierre Jean Mariette): "T.S. V.P." ("tournez, s'il vous plaît")
Provenance
Pierre Crozat (died 1740), Paris; sold, Paris, April 10–May 13, 1741, Crozat sale, lot 441. Pierre-Jean Mariette (died 1774), Paris [Lugt 1852]. Count Moriz von Fries (died 1826), Vienna [Lugt 2903]. Sir Thomas Lawrence (died 1830), London [Lugt 2445]; sold by Lawrence estate to Samuel Woodburn (died 1853) [Washington, D.C., 1999]. Lord Francis Egerton (died 1857), 1st Earl of Ellesmere, London; by descent; sold, Sotheby's, London, July 11, 1972, Ellesmere sale, lot 68. British Rail Pension Fund; sold by Lexbourne Ltd., London, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1989.
Exhibition history
London, Lawrence Gallery, 1836, cat. 59. Leicester Museums and Art Gallery, "The Ellesmere Collection of Old Master Drawings," 1954, cat. 47. London, P.&D. Colnaghi, "Drawings by the Carracci and Other Masters," 1955, cat. 12. Bologna, Palazzo dell’Archiginnasio, "Mostra dei Carracci: Disegni," September 1-November 25, 1956, cat. 112. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, "The Carracci, Drawings and Paintings," 1961, cat. 123. Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art, "Prints and Related Drawings by the Carracci Family," 1979, pp. 458-60. The Art Institute of Chicago, "New Accessions: Old Master Drawings of the Fifteenth–Eighteenth Centuries," December 2, 1989–June 8, 1990. New York, The Frick Collection, "From Pontormo to Seurat: Drawings Recently Acquired by The Art Institute of Chicago," April 23-July 7, 1991, n.p., cat. 10; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, September 10, 1991-January 5, 1992. Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art, "The Drawings of Annibale Carracci," September 1999-January 2000, cat. 66.
Publications
Pierre-Jean Mariette, Abecedario I (1851–1862), p. 319. Catalogue of the Ellesmere Collection of Drawings at Bridgewater House (London, 1898), no. 70. Otto Kurz, "Engravings on Silver by Annibale Carracci," Burlington Magazine (September 1955), pp. 282-87 (ill.). Roseline Bacou, Dessins des Carrache (Paris, 1961), under no. 81. John Rupert Martin, The Farnese Gallery (1965), no. 127 (ill.). Donald Posner, Annibale Carracci, II (1971), under no. 113. Edmund Schilling and Anthony Blunt, The German Drawings in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle and Supplements to the Catalogues of Italian and French Drawings, with a history of the Royal Collection of Drawings (London, 1971), under Wittkower no.100. Jacob Bean, 17th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1979), under no. 104. Diane DeGrazia, Le stampe dei Carracci: con i disegni, le incisioni, le copie e i dipinti connessi: catalogo critico (Bologna, 1984), pp. 240–43, under no. 19 (ill.). Babette Bohn, Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century 39 (New York, 1996), p. 239 (ill.). Clare Robertson, Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections (Oxford, 1996), p. 138, under no. 87. Suzanne Folds McCullagh, “‘A Lasting Monument’: The Regenstein Collection at The Art Institute of Chicago,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 26:1 (2000), p. 12. Laura M. Giles and Margo McFarland, “Recto: Drunken Silenus and Decorative Sketches (Studies for the ‘Tazza Farnese’), 1599/1601; Verso: Two Putti Fighting (Study for the Galleria Farnese), 1599-1601,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 26: 1 (2000), pp. 20-23, cat. 4, figs. 11-12.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Annibale Carracci / Italian, 1560-1609
- Date
- 1599/1601
- Medium
- Pen and iron gall ink, with brush and brown wash on cream laid paper edge mounted to cream laid paper (recto), and pen and iron gall ink on cream laid paper with decorative border in pen and brown ink (verso)
- Dimensions
- Primary support: 20.4 × 17.7 cm (8 1/16 × 7 in.); With overlays: 28.4 × 17.7 cm (11 3/16 × 7 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- pen and ink drawings
- Place
- Italy
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- The Regenstein Collection
- Accession no.
- 1989.188
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Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00005113
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