Bolognese School (17th Century) Study of a bearded man in profile Black chalk heightened with white on paper 12-7/8 x 10-1/2 inches (32.7 x 26.7 cm) (sight) Property from the William A. Glaser Collection PROVENANCE: Savoy Art & Auction Galleries, New York, December 3, 1960, lot 18 (as Peter Paul Rubens); Acquired by the present owner from the above. For almost four decades, William Glaser doggedly pursued preeminent scholars and connoisseurs of Italian Baroque drawing in an effort to securely pin down an ironclad attribution for this powerful head of a bearded man in black chalk. While a firm attribution ultimately eluded him, he exchanged spirited letters with several people who pointed him towards a Bolognese hand. In a letter of September 2, 1982, Mimi Cazort, Curator of Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, wrote to Glaser: "The chalk drawing of the old man is the kind of drawing that's so difficult to identify. It is certainly out of the [Guido] Reni tradition but this tradition carried on until the end of the 18th century. All of Reni's pupils did such studies (Cantarini, Sirani, etc.), many of a quality matching that of Guido himself. The only hope for a definitive attribution would be finding exactly the same profile in a painting." In a letter dated May 31, 1990, Nicholas Turner, Assistant Keeper at The British Museum, wrote to Glaser: "The Head of a Bearded Man seen in Profile is vaguely suggestive of Guido Reni, though I would not go so far as to suggest that it is by him. It is somewhat suggestive of the work of Domenichino." HID12401132022 © 2024 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice