Romolus and Raemus next to the River God Tiber

Giovanni Battista Gaulli, il Baciccio

1639 Genoa – 1709 Rome

Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk, brown and grey wash, heightened in white. Sheet size: 18.1 x 28.4 cm.

An exemplary drawing by Gaulli.

On the basis of the decisive drawing style our drawing probably dates from around 1675.

Gaulli closely followed his teacher Gian Lorenzo Bernini. With the commission to decorate the Gesù (1672-85), he became the most important Roman fresco painter of the second half of the seventeenth century. The majority of his extant drawings are today in the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf; they were catalogued by Dieter Graf in 1976.

Bought by a private collector, Northern America.