Neptune or Mercury with Putto

Author: Rosie Razzall

This drawing is one of three pen-and-ink studies in Rotterdam that were previously in the collection of the French dealer and collector Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694-1774). They were retained on one of his distinctive blue collector’s mounts until at least 1906, as they are illustrated as such in the catalogue of the collection of John Postle Heseltine (1843-1929).^[1] Unfortunately that mount is now lost, but all three drawings still bear Mariette’s collector’s mark (L.2097) in the lower left corner.

The three drawings were attributed to the Venetian artist Paris Bordone when in Mariette’s collection, with the inscription ‘Paris Bordoné’ on the larger sheet (I 203) probably added at that point. However, Tietze/Tietze Conrat, followed by Rearick, Donati and Rosenberg,^[2] only firmly accepted Bordone’s authorship for the larger sheet. In the two smaller sheets (the present drawing and I 202) wash is used as well as the pen, and they may well be by a different hand, as suggested by the looping and disconnected pen lines in comparison with the somewhat denser penwork of the larger, autograph sheet.

Tietze/Tietze Conrat noted that the paucity of pen-and-ink drawings by Bordone makes the attribution difficult to assess. Like many of his Venetian contemporaries Bordone mostly drew in black and white chalks on blue paper, with only two examples of pen-and-ink drawings in Paris^[3] and Erlangen,^[4] which do not allow for much stylistic comparison. The three Rotterdam drawings are nevertheless grouped together because of their mythological subjects. This drawing shows a nude male god with a trident, leaning over towards a putto.