A new 17th-century drawing acquired by Stockholm

19/9/23 - Acquisition - Stockholm, Nationalmuseum - A new old master drawing has joined the graphic arts collection of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. Still anonymous, this red chalk portrait of the great Italian collector and patron Cassiano dal Pozzo was bought, thanks to the support of the Hedda and N.D. Qvist Memorial Fund, for 16,900 euros (including fees) from Daguerre at Hôtel Drouot on 29 November 2022. The work is mounted on a panel on the back of which is inscribed "Ritratto di monsignor/dal Pozzo arcivescovo/ di Pisa/Cassianus a Puteo [?]/Lamb Levi 11 settemb’ 1770/disegno vero originale/di mano di Pietro Testa/ora del sig. Ignazio Hugford/notato [?] dal Baldinucci/nella vita". As Martin Olin, Director of Collections at the Nationalmuseum, points out, the inscription incorrectly identifies the model as Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, Archbishop of Pisa, the uncle of Cassiano dal Pozzo who is actually depicted.

Unknown artist, 17th century
Portrait of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657), c. 1620
Red chalk - 11.9 x 9 cm
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum
Photo: Stockholm, Nationalmuseum

See the image in its page

A leading figure in the aristocratic and intellectual life of seventeenth-century Rome and an influential patron of the arts, Cassiano dal Pozzo has gone down in history for his "Museo Cartaceo", or "Paper Museum", his encyclopaedic collection of over 7,000 watercolours and drawings and 3,000 engravings built up with his brother Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo. Sold and then dispersed in the 18th century, the collection is now divided between the Royal Library at Windsor Castle - which holds most of the collection acquired by George III from Cardinal Alessandro Albani in 1762 - the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, the British Library, the library of Sir John Soane’s Museum, the Institut de France in Paris and several other public and private collections. Since the late 1980s, this immense corpus has been the subject of…