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Description: Apollo and Herse. No watermark. Numbered in pen and brown ink at lower right: 271 (Sparre) and 7 (on the mount, struck out). Inscribed on the mount: Thimotée Viti. Cabinet de Crozat, Apollon et Hersé, v. Cat. de Mariette no. 177.

Borenius noted that the woman leaning against the doorpost occurs in a drawing by Timoteo Viti in the British Museum. It is reasonable to believe, with Gere, that Viti was responsible for the whole composition. The drawing belongs to a group attributed to the "Calligraphic Forger" by Fischel and others. Gere included this and the four following drawings in a group of fourteen by the same hand in various collections. Most of these drawings have old attributions to Viti. Three of them can be shown to draw on works by Viti (two are in Stockholm), and three other reproduce drawings by Raphael. The latter are all in the Ashmolean Museum, and come from the Viti-Antaldi Collection. The Stockholm drawings probably also come from this source, Crozat acquired part of the collection in 1714. A drawing by Viti in Stockholm is without doubt from the Viti-Antaldi Collection (cat. 406), and was copied by the "Calligraphic Forger"; this copy is in the Ashmolean Museum.

This draughtsman has not been identified. He obiously strived to create Raphaelesque works, using drawings both by Raphael and Viti as models. Fischel considered the possibility that he is an English 18th century amateur. On stylistic grounds the drawings are usually dated in the 17th century. A red chalk study on the verso of one of the Stockholm drawings (Cat. 553) shows the artist's personal style, as Gere has pointed out. Since some of the relevant drawings were acquired by Crozat in 1714, this seems to be a convenient last date. However, there is the remote possibility that the draughtman was still active and continued his work. [Bjurström, It. Drawings, cat. no. 551]

Apollo och Hersé