Provenance

The artist’s studio, 1779

Don Nicolas José de Azara (1730-1804), Marchese di Nibbiano, his inventory number on the reverse, 39, until 1804, by descent to

Doña Asunción de Azara, Madrid

Thence by descent

Exhibitions

Madrid, Museo del Prado, Antonio Rafael Mengs 1728-1779, 1929, p. 10, cat. no. 15 (catalogue by F. J. Sánchez Cantón, ed.)

Madrid, Museo del Prado, Antonio Rafael Mengs 1728-1779, 1980, pp. 124-25, cat. no. 50 (catalogue by M. Agueda Villar)

On loan to the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes de Zaragoza, until 1975

Literature

G. M. Riminaldi, Descriptio bonorum herediorum bo[nae]me[moriae] eq[i]tis Antonii Raphaelis Mengs …, Rome, 15 September 1779, f. 483 r, no. 33: Bozzetto della volta di S. Eusebio … 120 [scudi]

J. F. Reiffenstein, Note de ce qui se trouve à l’heritage du defunt Ch[evalie]r Antoine Raphael Mengs, soit Peinture, Desseings, etudes faites, Cartons, et estampes, Rome, 1780: Peintures, no. 27, Esquisse du plafond de St. Eusebe … 230 [scudi]

N. de Azara (and C. Fea), Opere di Antonio Raffaello Mengs, primo pittore del re cattolico Carlo III, Rome, 1787, p. XVIII, no. XLV

A. Beltrán, Catálogo del Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, 1964, p. 68

D. Honisch, Anton Raphael Mengs und die Bildform des Frühklassizismus, Recklinghausen, 1965, p. 114, no. 201

X. de Salas, “Inventarios de obras de arte. Cuadros de José Nicolás de Azara, Marqués de Nibbiano en Huesca,” in Arte Español, col. XXV, 1963-67, p. 124

S. Roettgen, Anton Raphael Mengs, 1728-1779, and his British Patrons, exhibition catalogue, London, Kenwood House, 1993, p. 90, under cat. no. 20

S. Roettgen, Anton Raphael Mengs, I, Munich 1999, pp. 395-96, cat. no. 302, illustrated

This large-scale oil sketch is the final bozzetto for Mengs’s first Roman commission on a monumental scale, the ceiling fresco in the Church of S. Eusebio, Rome, painted in 1757-59.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF CANADA, OTTAWA