Composition Study for 'The Glorification of St Lawrence'

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TMSFoto/PK/WM inv S 22 detail Letters LC-drieblad.jpg

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Specifications

Title	Composition Study for 'The Glorification of St Lawrence'
Material and technique	Black chalk
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 311 mm Width 215 mm
Artists	Draughtsman: Alessandro Maganza Previously attributed: El Greco
Accession number	S 22 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1615
Watermark	Countermark Letters FG surmounted by a trefoil (in the center, on P4 of 8P, vH), probably belonging to a Crossbow type watermark. An almost identical countermark is found in another drawing by Maganza in MBVB, inv. S 25. [see image] A similar countermark Letters PL with a trefoil is in a Maganza drawing in the Fondation Custodia, Paris (Byam Shaw 1983, no. 254, vol. 2, p. 131, ill.
Inscriptions	'Il Greco - Teotocopuli', '18 m' en '19' (on missing removed mount, below left, below centre and top center, pencil)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a on missing removed mount?)
Provenance	Sir Archibald Alison (1792-1867), Glasgow (in an album); art dealer Luigi Grassi (1858-1937, L.1171b), Florence (from the album, probably dismembered by him); Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1930 (attributed to El Greco); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Venice/Florence 1985, no. 51
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, pp. 27, 292 under no. A 1757 (Maganza?); Wethey 1962, p. 153 (Venetian Mannerist); Byam Shaw 1976, under no. 840; Byam Shaw 1983, under no. 252; Aikema/Meijer 1985, no. 51, ill.; Forlani Tempesti 1991, pp. 330, 332; Paris 1996, under no. 61; Boschini/De Boer 2008, p. 393, fig. 364; Meijer 2017, pp. 257-58 n. 22
Material	Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Leadpoint > Metalpoint > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe
Place of manufacture	Vicenza > Veneto region > Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Albert Elen

This design for a composition belongs to a group of thirteen drawings (S 18-30) in the Koenigs Collection, once attributed to El Greco (1541-1614) during his Venetian period (1567-77) before he went to Spain.^[1]Most of them are now commonly accepted as works by the Vicentine artist Alessandro Maganza, and some have been firmly linked to paintings by this artist, including our drawings S 20-22, 25 and 29.

As argued by Meijer (1985, 2017), the present drawing is probably the first draft for The Martyrdom of St Lawrence. This was an altarpiece, now lost, in the church of San Lorenzo in Vicenza (c.1615), mentioned as one of the gioielli pittoreschi (jewels of painting) in Vicenza by Boschini (1676).^[2]The latter’s description ‘il martirio di s. Lorenzo, & in aria la Santissima Trinità, con molti angeli; opera degna di Alessandro Maganza’ (the martyrdom of St Lawrence, & in the air the Holy Trinity, with many angels; work worthy of Alessandro Maganza) fits our composition, in which the saint is not represented on the gridiron but after torture and death, ascending in the clouds for his glorification.^[3] The figure of the saint stands out as a result of the softer handling of the chalk. Unlike most of Maganza’s drawings - pen drawings over an underdrawing in black chalk - ours is only in black chalk. In two composition designs for other subjects, one in graphite, now in Cambridge, and the other in black chalk, last seen on the art market, the scene is similarly represented in an architectural setting, with steps leading to an elevation.^[4] Another drawing in the Rotterdam group may also depict the martyrdom of St Lawrence, but at the moment before his torture on the heated gridiron (S 19).

Footnotes

^[1]Listed by Koenigs among his Spanish drawings in his typescript inventory, hence the ‘S’ prefix to the inventory numbers; see the entry of inv. S 20.

^[2] ‘Il quarto altare contiene il martirio di s. Lorenzo, & in aria la Santissima Trinità, con molti angeli: opera degna di Alessandro Maganza’, Boschini (1676), p. 104 (Meijer 1985 erroneously refers to page 106); Boschini/De Boer 2008, p. 393, fig. 364.

^[3]In another drawing by Maganza, now in Darmstadt (Hessisches Landesmuseum, inv. AE 1710), an earlier scene in the sequence is depicted, the saint being dragged to the gridiron, where the fire is being stirred up; Meijer 1984a, p. 476, fig. 14. In a composition drawing in pen and wash in the British Museum, inv. 1910,01212.38, the saint is standing before the judge at the top of steps.

^[4]Fitzwilliam Museum, inv. PD.39-1964 (Christ before Pilate); Scrase 2011, no. 416, ill., 216 x 184 mm; London (Sotheby’s) 05.07.2013, lot 241 (St Bibiana Refusing to Worship Idols), 300 x 210 mm.

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