A donation of Italian drawings from the Ottocento to Yale

All the versions of this article: English , français

5/22/23 - Acquisitions - New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery - The New Haven museum has just received a major acquisition: an entire collection of nineteenth-century Italian drawings has been donated and sold by New York collectors Roberta Olson and Alexander Johnson. The former is a recognized art historian, specializing in this field, while the latter had a career in real estate financing. This ensemble makes the museum an obligatory stop for the study of the Ottocento, which is less well known than the preceding centuries in Italy, but which nonetheless includes many artists of great talent.


1. Ubaldo Gandolfi (1728–1781)
Susannah and the Elders, c. 1764
Brown ink, wash, black chalk - 23.3 x 18.5 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Museum
Photo: Yale University Art Museum
See the image in its page
2. Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787)
Male Nude Study, 1779
Black and white chalk - 53.5 x 39 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo : Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

We are publishing at the same time as this article a long interview of the generous donors who tell us about this ensemble as well as the very many works of other schools, other centuries and other techniques that they have also gathered. We will limit ourselves here to the collection now at New Haven by reproducing several sheets, without being able to be exhaustive, since it comprises about 400, including those contained in albums. Several others are illustrated with the interview.


3. Felice Giani (1758–1823)
Allegory and Triumph of the Fine Arts, 1784
Black ink, brown wash with white heightening - 40.8 x 52.7 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
4. Felice Giani (1758–1823)
Landscape Capriccio of Villa d’Este, Tivoli, with Punchinelli and Other Figures
Pen, brown ink, brown wash, graphite - 33.2 x 49.3 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

While the collection is primarily concerned with the extreme late eighteenth century and the nineteenth century, there are a few sheets by artists who lived only in the eighteenth century and are considered to belong fully to the Settecento. This is the case, for example, of Ubaldo Gandolfi (ill. 1) represented by three drawings, but also of Francesco Londonio or Pompeo Batoni. The latter, it is true, is already in some of his works an almost neoclassical painter and the study of a male nude on blue paper given to Yale undoubtedly testifies to this (ill. 2).


5. Luigi Sabatelli (1772-1850)
Orestes et les Érinyes, années 1790
Encre brune, graphite - 43 x 59,5 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo : Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
6. Luigi Sabatelli (1772–1850)
Pan and the Nymph Ega with Egipans, c. 1800
Brown ink - 27 x 40.3 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo : Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

7. Luigi Sabatelli (1772–1850)
Portrait of the Engraver Luigi Rossini, 1815
Black chalk - 27.6 x 18 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
8. Andrea Appiani (1754–1817)
Portrait of Young Man, 1810
Black, red, and white chalk, graphite - 24 x 20 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

Neoclassicism, moreover, takes the lion’s share, with exceptional sheets by the greatest Italian painters of the time, each of whom appears in the collection by several works.


9. Andrea Appiani (1754–1817)
Study for “La Notte” in the Sala dell’Udienze, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 1809
Brown ink, graphite - 24 x 40 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
10. Pelagio Palagi (1775-1860)
The Dryads, the Sisters of Phaeton, in Pioppi, 1802
Black ink and gray wash, graphite - 28 x 35.2 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

11. Pelagio Palagi (1775–1860)
Mythological Airborne Figures (Psyche?; One Wearing Phrygian Cap), c. 1825
Brown ink - 20.3 x 26.5 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
12. Giuseppe Bernardino Bison (1762–1844)
Diana and Endymion with Cupid, c. 1800
Black and brown ink, brown wash heightened with white - 38.5 x 51 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

Thus, there are no less than twelve drawings plus an album by Felice Giani (ill. 3 and 4), ten works by Luigi Sabatelli (ill. 5 to 7), five Andrea Appiani (ill. 8 to 9), six by Pelagio Pelagi (ill. 10 and 11), undoubtedly a little less well known than the latter, but one of the most attractive draftsmen as evidenced by, for example, these Dryades. Giuseppe Bernardino Bison is represented by a drawing (ill. 12) and Giuseppe Cades by two sheets, one of which (ill. 13) depicts a saint who appears to be Catherine of Alexandria but is identified as a Saint Augusta, who also has a cogwheel as an attribute.


13. Giuseppe Cades (1750–1799)
Study for Saint Augusta with Her Wheel and Holding a Palm, 1790s
Brown ink and wash, graphite - 28.2 x 22.3 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
14. Antonio Canova (1757–1822)
Study of a Pugilist for “Creugas”, 1795
Black chalk - 45.5 x 33 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

15. Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850)
Capricci on the Laocöon with Greek Inscriptions, c. 1828
Brown ink, graphite - 29 x 22.2 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
16. Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850)
Study for Central Grouping of the Demidoff Monument, c. 1830
Brown ink - 26.8 x 19.5 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

The sculptors are also present and among them the two greatest neoclassicists: Antonio Canova and Lorenzo Bartolini, the first with two works (ill. 14), the second with five including an interpretation of the Laocoon (ill. 15) and two preparatory studies for the monument to Nicola Demidoff in Florence (ill. 16).


17. Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781–1835)
Father Killing His Daughter, 1812
Brown ink, wash, graphite - 51.7 x 68.7 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
18. Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781–1835)
Nero Fleeing Rome with the Arrival of Galba, 1812
Brown ink, wash, graphite on paper - 49 x 66.7 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

Bartolomeo Pinelli is one of the most abundant artists in the collection (ill. 17 à 20) both with his watercolors of scenes of daily life or brigandage in the Roman countryside, for which he is best known, and with large mythological drawings such as he did in his early days. For more information, we refer to the interview with the two donors.


19. Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781–1835)
The Barque of Charon with Self- Portrait, 1825–26
Graphite - 12.5 x 17.3 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
20. Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781–1835)
Family of the Artist, 1808
Brown ink and wash, graphite - 38.5 x 54 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

Landscapes form one of the highlights of this collection, with Giacinto Gigante (ill. 21), whose album of 55 drawings and 15 independent works join Yale (again we refer to the interview). Gigante, a remarkable artist like most of these landscapists, is very little known and it is to be hoped that this donation will shed more light on him, but also on Luigi Basiletti (six sheets - ill. 22), Carlo Labruzzi (five sheets), Giovanni Migliara, a vedutist who worked notably for the Scala in Milan, the Dutchman Anton Sminck van Pitloo (ill. 23), Alberto Pasini (ill. 24), or Ippolito Caffi, also a city painter who traveled to France.


21. Giacinto Gigante (1806–1876)
View of Sorrento, the Bay of Naples Beyond, 1836
Watercolor, gouache, graphite - 30.5 x 46 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
22. Luigi Basiletti (1780–1859)
Monastery of San Benedetto, Subiaco, c. 1810
Brown ink and wash - 29.2 x 41.5 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

23. Anton Sminck van Pitloo (1790–1837)
Rustic Scene in Baia with the “Temple of Venus” in the Background, 1828
Watercolor, graphite - 17 x 25 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Galleryt Gallery
See the image in its page
24. Alberto Pasini (1826–1899)
Desert landscape in Persia, 1855
Craie blanche, pierre noire - 28.1 x 41.5 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

25. Vincenzo Camuccini (1771–1844)
Christ in the Garden of Olives, c. 1820
Black chalk, graphite - 56.5 x 32.6 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

We could still point out a beautiful Christ in the Garden of Olives (ill. 25) by Vincenzo Camuccini (there are few works with religious subjects in the collection), a Hayez that we talk about with collectors, or a Danaë by Francesco Podesti.

Works from the second half of the 19th century are less numerous, but of great importance, such as three albums and two drawings by Boldini (ill. 26), two sheets by Sartorio (ill. 27), an artist whose acquisition of two paintings by Orsay was discussed recently (see news item 5/18/23), or even Giacomo Balla with a youthful work representing an antique bust of Seneca.


26. Giovanni Boldini (1842–1931)
Study of the Artist’s Neoclassical Swan Bed, c. 1900
Graphite - 33 x 33 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page
27. Giulio Aristide Sartorio (1860–1932)
Ex Libris for Julia Aristides, 1890s
Black chalk, black ink, white heightening, and encaustic on artist’s board - 45 x 84.2 cm
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery
Photo: Yale University Art Gallery
See the image in its page

As Roberta Olson and Alexander Johnson say, what they still have in their collection, including German, Danish, French, or English works, is so important that in the years to come - at least that is what they want - it will be able to feed into several other donations. Not to mention that they continue to enrich it. No doubt we will have the opportunity to talk about them again.

Your comments

In order to be able to discuss articles and read the contributions of other subscribers, you must subscribe to The Art Tribune. The advantages and conditions of this subscription, which will also allow you to support The Art Tribune, are described on the subscription page.

If you are already a subscriber, sign in.