CIRO FERRI
(Rome, 1634 – 1689)

Alexander the Great Entrusted to Aristotle for Education


Graphite on paper
13 ⅝ x 12 inches (34.5 x 30.5 cm)


Provenance:

(Probably) Private Collection, Austria (according to Z. Stelle f. Denkmalschutz Stamp on the reverse, indicating export from Austria)

Wilhelm Suida; thence by descent to:

Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, until 1996

Private Collection, USA

Traditionally thought to be by Pietro da Cortona, our handsome drawing is rather the work of Cortona’s principal student and artistic heir, Ciro Ferri. Ferri was greatly inspired by the drawing style of his teacher, developing a related but distinct hand.  

This sketch depicts Alexander the Great Entrusted to Aristotle for Education and is preparatory for an engraving designed by Ferri and Pietro Lucatelli, and executed by Arnold van Westerhout. Westerhout’s engraving was published the year after Ferri’s death in 1690. It served as a thesis print for the disputation of Giovanni Filingerio and was dedicated to Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni (Fig. 1). Another printed version of this subject, in reverse, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (Fig. 2). This engraving is generally considered to be earlier than Westerhout’s print.

Intriguingly, our drawing does not correspond exactly to either Westerhout’s print or the earlier example in the Bibliothèque Nationale, but it incorporates aspects that are unique in each of the printed versions.[i] The drawing is executed in the same sense as the Westerhout engraving and the dimensions of the drawing are roughly similar to the dimensions of the image of the print (32.8 x 62.2 cm, as it only represents half of the print). While our drawing relates more closely to this print—most notably in the distance between the young Alexander the Great and the figure on the right presenting him—the design on the shield held by the soldier on the left of our drawing appears to relate more closely to the decorative design in the Bibliothèque Nationale print than the more elaborate one in the Westerhout print.

 
Full composition of the traditional scene depicted in the present work.

Fig. 1. Arnold van Westerhout, Alexander the Great Entrusted to Aristotle for Education, engraving, 1790.

 
 
Mirrored image of the present work.

Fig. 2. Alexander the Great Entrusted to Aristotle for Education, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

 

[i] It also does not correspond exactly to a 1709 engraving of the same scene by Pancrazio Capelli, presumably done after Westerhout’s print.