Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Holy Family with Infant Saint John

Artist: Agostino Masucci (Italian, 1690-1768)

Medium: red chalk (counterproof) on paper

Dimensions: 7 1/2 in. x 6 in. (19.05 cm. x 15.2 cm.)

Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James Bowdoin III

Accession Number: 1811.61

• T or F within circle within six-pointed star inscribed within circle surmounted by cross; elaborate F below circle (close to Briquet 6089)
  Type: watermarks
  Location:
  Materials:

• James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
• Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest

• Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
  • Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
  • University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
  • Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
• Biblical Images: From Creation to Endtime
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 1/8/2002 - 2/24/2002)
• Monotheism & Masculinity
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/5/2004 - 11/7/2004)

Type: catalogue
Author: Henry Johnson
Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pp. 180-181
Reference: no. 83, repr. in large paper edition
Remarks: (as Unknown)
Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings
Date: 1885

Type: catalogue
Author: Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Document Title: Bowdoin Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building
Edition: 4th
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 83
Remarks: (as Unknown)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . .
Date: 1930

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: David P. Becker
Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pp. 180-181
Reference: no. 84 (illus.)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Date: 1985
			
		

Among the relatively large group of Marattesque drawings in the Bowdoin bequest is this carefully finished composition, perhaps intended as an end in itself. Filippo di Pietro first attributed it to the school of Maratti and was followed by Sir Robert Witt.¹ Manuela Mena Marqués has tentatively suggested Masucci as the author.²

Masucci studied with Andrea Procaccini and was the youngest of Maratti's pupils. He was elected to the Accademia di San Luca in 1724 and served as its head from 1736 to 1738. He executed altarpieces and was known as a portraitist. Among Masucci's pupils were Pompeo Batoni and Gavin Hamilton.

Other Masucci drawings are in Windsor Castle,³ Berlin,⁴ the Held Collection,⁵ and the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.⁶ The latter group are primarily portraits of artists done for Niccolò Pio's biographies. The Bowdoin drawing is probably a counterproof, as indicated by the unusual direction of the shading.⁷ A very similar drawing from the Maratti school, now attributed to Giuseppe Chiari, was formerly in the Bick Collection.⁸

1. Comments in the BCMA files.

2. Letter to the author, 29 December 1983.

3. Blunt and Cooke 1960, cat. nos. 533-35.

4. Dreyer 1971, pp. 202-6, figs. 21-25.

5. Clark Art Institute, Master Drawings from the Collection of Ingrid and Julius S. Held (exh. cat. by L. Giles, E. Milroy, and G. Owens) (Williamstown, 1979), cat. no. 25, repr.

6. Cf. Clark 1967, pp. 14-15, several repr. fig. I, pls. 10-12.

7. For instance, see Dreyer 1971, p. 204, fig. 24, for a finished drawing by Masucci.

8. Dartmouth College, Italian Drawings: Selections from the Collection of Esther S. and Malcolm W. Bick (exh. cat.) (Hanover, N.H., 1971), cat. no. 30, repr.; sold Sotheby's London, 2 July 1984, lot no. 90.

Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).