PARIS.- Marty de Cambiaire will be exhibiting for the first time at the prestigious Salon du Dessin. The fair is taking place in Paris from 25 to 30 March. On this occasion, a bilingual exhibition catalogue Drawings & Sketches has been published, and it will be available at the exhibition booth 24. The gallery’s eighth catalogue is dedicated to a group of about forty works on paper, most of which are mainly from private collections, dating from the 16th to the 20th century.
Among the selected works, the gallery would like to draw your attention to a few sheets. The first is a recently rediscovered self-portrait by Augustin de Saint-Aubin (1736-1807) from the famous Goncourt brothers’ collection depicting an artist in the process of drawing. A study worth mentioning is a male nude by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770). Unpublished until now and reattributed by the specialists of this famous Venetian artist, it is an early work, both refined and powerful.
A particular mention deserves a drawn portrait by Jan Kraeck, called Giovanni Caracca (circa 1550-1607), which represents the famous Infanta Catalina Micaela of Spain, the second daughter of Philip II, King of Spain, and his third wife, the young Elisabeth of France. Until now attributed to Antonio Campi, this work can in fact be given definitely to this artist. Born in Haarlem, Giovanni Caracca had become in 1568 the official court painter of the Dukes of Savoy in Turin where Catalina Micaela moved following her marriage to Carlo Emanuele di Savoia in 1585. Caracca was then commissioned many paintings of the couple and their children that were regularly sent to Philip II as well as to her sister Isabel Clara Eugenia, future sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands. He also produced numerous drawn portraits of the ladies of the court and many jewelry designs. It is Caracca who brought a number of his portraits to the court of Spain in person, proof of his status as favorite painter. As a result, he received commissions for portraits of the sovereign and his entourage.
The many paintings produced by Caracca for the Infanta and her family are spread around Europe and only now are beginning to be identified more precisely. His drawings are extremely rare nowadays and most of them have been destroyed in a fire which ravaged the Biblioteca Storica della Provincia in Turin.
Thus this life-size drawing is a precious evidence of his activity as a draftsman. It bears incisions and can be related to a painted portrait of the Infanta of approximately similar dimensions that has recently reappeared on the art market. This occurrence is quite unique and significant for the history of drawn portraits.
Among others, the catalogue includes some interesting discoveries, as for example a curious bat study by a mid-17th century Florentine artist, Vincenzo Dandini, or a large watercolor executed by a woman artist Marie-Désirée Bourgoin which shows the workshop of the famous 19th century military painter Alphonse de Neuville surrounded by his painting and military equipment.
The catalogue will be downloadable starting from the opening day, Tuesday 24 March, from their website:
www.martydecambiaire.com.
