RC
Carlo Innocenzo Carloni (Carlone) (Scaria 1686-Como 1775)
Allegory of Wealth
Pen and black ink, brush and black ink and grey wash on paper
180x230mm
Watermark: framed post horn
Provenance: private collection, Vienna
Our drawing is a typical example of Carloni's preparatory sketch for a ceiling decoration. Johann Daniel Herz (1693-1754) etched this allegorical scene with the inscription "C. Carlone inv: et fecit" (C. Carlone invented and made it)1. Herz etching shows an architectural background and a shell that are absent in the drawing suggesting the existance of a larger composition. He also etched Carloni's "Allegory of aristocracy" that was likely part of the same decoration2. Prof. Simonetta Coppa confirmed our attribution in an e-mail dated 26/Dec/2012. She relates the drawing to Carloni's sketch of the "Allegory of Wealth" in the Ludwigsburg castle art collection that is preparatory for a painting in the queen's antechamber of the same castle. A variation on the theme has been painted by Carloni in a small painting (private collection) published by Amalia Barigozzi Brini3.
1 Alexandre De Vesme, Le peintre-graveur italien, 1906, p.372, no.6.
2 Alexandre De Vesme, Le peintre-graveur italien, 1906, p.372, no.5.
3 Amalia Barigozzi Brini, Due dipinti inediti di Carlo Innocenzo Carloni, in Pittura Veneziana dal Quattrocento al Settecento, Studi di storia dell'arte in onore di Egidio Martini, Venice, Arsenale Editrice, 1999, pp. 232-233.
