Luigi Sabatelli (born Florence, Italy 1772-died Milan 1850)

The Brazen Serpent (after Michelangelo); circa 1796, Rome
Pen and brown ink on off-white paper 13 x 21 ½ inches (33 x 54.5 cm.) Good condition
Verso: Study of a Muscular Male Leg in Profile (after Michaelangelo), Pen and brown ink

Provenance:
Possibly Collection of Tommaso Puccini, Pisa ( commission to Sabatelli ), circa 1796;
European Art Market, circa 1960s;
Collection (and later Estate) of Rudolph S. Joseph, Santa Barbara, California (as anonymous artist);
Fred R. Kline Gallery, Santa Fe, NM. ( here attributed to Sabatelli by Fred R. Kline)

Supporting scholars:
Dr. Nicola Spinosa, Director, Capodimonte Museum, Naples;
Dr. Rossana Muzii, Director, National Museum of San Martino, Naples.

Opinion:
The Brazen Serpent is a tour de force by Sabatelli: a drawing with some thirty dramatically articulated figures interacting within a tondo format. Working in his mid-20s in Rome, Sabatelli was influenced by the works of Michelangelo and by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli and Fuseli’s Roman drawings modeled after Michelangelo, which Sabatelli is known to have studied. It is plausible that The Brazen Serpent was a commission from the noted literato Tommaso Puccini who commissioned many other drawings from Sabatelli of similar diabolic subject matter and in a similar Fuseli-influenced style(cf. Orestes Pursued by the Erinyes and The Death of Alcibiades; both private collections; illustrated in Strozzi, Luigi Sabatelli & Olson, Italian Drawings 1780-1890). The Brazen Serpent can readily be seen stylistically as part of Sabatelli’s circa 1790s period which included his distinctive neoclassical engravings after Dante’s The Divine Comedy and his famous etching The Plague of Florence (1801)

Sabatelli was highly esteemed as a painter, draftsman and engraver during his lifetime. In 1808, at the age of 35, he was appointed to the Chair of Painting at the Brera Academy in Milan, where he remained for 40 years. His most famous work, made during 1820-25 in Florence, is the vast tondo in the Sala dell’Iliade in the Palazzo Pitti. During Sabatelli’s years in Florence he became friends with Ingres, who was then just establishing a studio in the city.

Fred R. Kline, Santa Fe, New Mexico/September 2003

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