JACOPO PALMA, called IL GIOVANE

1544 — Venice — 1620

Study Sheet w Family Likenesses
verso: study of Paul fallen from his horse, etc.

pen & brown ink 6 7/8 x 8 7/8" (175 x 224mm). inscribed: Taddeo and on the verso:...olada.

provenance:
the inventory number 14 stenciled by an 18th c. collector;
Ferruccio Asta , Venice 1900-1952 (L.116a);
private collection, Norfolk, CT.

The inveterate draughtsman Palma descended from a family of artists. He was more talented than his father and more prolific than any other family member by far with a surviving total of over 600 paintings. After the death of Tintoretto in 1594, he was pre-eminent in Venice and he continued to perpetuate the late master's style. From 1582 until she died in 1605, he was married to Andriana whose face appears often in Palma's drawings. Even without the artist's inscription (as is often found on such study sheets), one recognizes her features in the woman at the right on the recto. The other head study is likely one of their children, Taddeo. An unrelated compositional study of unknown subject accompanies these informal family portraits. The verso study of a man thrown from his horse which has also hit the ground, may well be a study for one of at least 3 paintings of the Conversion of St. Paul. But it seems closest to the one now in the Prado which is dated circa 1590-95.1 There Paul is also depicted thrown to the ground, on his back but with one leg still upon the fallen horse. There too the horse is on his stomach and turns his neck around to see what is happening. The view is different, but the position of horse and former rider are basically the same. One can also detect in the sketch a fleeing figure, much like that in the painting, mid-right. We are thus inclined to date our drawing ca. 1590.
1

See Stefania Mason Rinaldi, Palma il Giovane, L'opera Completa, Milano, 1984, cat. # 138, p.90; fig. 214, p. 273.