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Adoration of the shepherds (recto)
Sketch of seated male nude (verso)

Maker

Salvatore Olivieri (Il Salvatoriello) (artist)
1696-1718

Title

Adoration of the shepherds (recto)
Sketch of seated male nude (verso)

Medium

chalk (black), pen and ink (brown), wash (brown) (recto), chalk (red), wash (brown) (verso) on laid paper

Dimensions

Height: 28.4 cm
Width: 18.6 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.3651

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords











Label Text

Olivieri is recorded among the more than thirty artists who worked in the studio of Luca Giordano (1634 – 1705), the leading painter of seventeenth-century Naples. This sheet carries an old, possibly contemporary attribution to Olivieri, whose work is little known. The shepherds are shown here arriving hurriedly at Bethlehem and offering a lamb to the new-born Christ – a detail not mentioned in the Bible, but often included in paintings of this scene.

Provenance

Efim Schapiro, London (1899-1977); acquired from him (in an exchange) by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), n.d.; Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Special Display - Neapolitan drawings, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 06/10/2011-26/01/2012

Literature

Fischer, Chris and Joachim Meyer, Neapolitan drawings: Italian drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen 2006
p. 16
fig. 5 on p. 17

Inscriptions

Signature: olivieri

Inscription: Olivieri / Domenico Oliveri, d. 1718, called / Salvatoriello, b. at Naples. //

Inscription: #4

Collector's mark: collector's mark of Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b)

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