Girolami Da Carpi (1501-1556). Roman Soldiers.

Drawing by Girolamo da Carpi (1501-1556), 15.5 cm x 8.5 cm. Assembly of Roman soldiers. Pen, brown ink, and indigo wash. Very good condition. Provenance: formerly in the pseudo-Crozat collection, as indicated by its stamp in the lower right corner (L.474, unidentified mark), and formerly in the Victor Newman collection, with its stamp in the lower right corner (L.2540). Son of a painter and decorator at the Este court in Ferrara, Italy, Girolamo da Carpi was a painter of the first half of the 16th century. He visited Rome in the early 1520s and was in Bologna in 1525. Five years later, he reappears in Ferrara. Girolamo da Carpi regularly collaborated with Dosso Dossi and other painters (on decorations and frescoes) for the Este family and their court. When Cardinal Ippolito d'Este summoned him to Rome in 1549 to excavate Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, Carpi developed a keen interest in antiquity and architecture. He then designed the gardens of this palace. In 1550, he became the architect of Pope Julius III, oversaw the renovations of the Villa Belvedere in the Vatican, and then returned to Ferrara in 1553, where he died in 1556. His life is known to us, in particular, thanks to Giorgio Vasari's famous book, Lives of the Artists. A drawing, with a theme similar to our work and attributed to Girolamo da Carpi, is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.