Getty Adds 17 Drawings, Including Eva Gonzalès Pastel

Eva Gonzalès, The Maid of Honor, 1879. Getty Museum

The Getty Museum has bought 17 drawings by artists including Guercino, Joseph Wright of Derby, Odilon Redon, Edgar Degas, and Eva Gonzalès. The latter, a sparkling pastel portrait titled The Maid of Honor or The Bridesmaid, is the Getty's first work by a woman Impressionist. When shown at the 1880 Salon, it drew praise from Manet. In the Getty press release, Timothy Potts rates the pastel as Gonzalès most celebrated work.

All the new drawings were purchased from unidentified private collection(s), not necessarily the same one. The provenance of 12 include dealer Jean-Luc Baroni as the penultimate name. That raises the possibility that these dozen sheets come from the same source as the group of 16 European drawings (plus a Watteau painting) acquired in 2017. The stealth seller was later identified in the art media as U.K. investment manager Luca Padulli, who bought at auction via Baroni to fly under the radar. 

Luca Cambiaso, The Death of Cleopatra, about 1560

The earliest drawing of the purchase, this Luca Cambiaso is preparatory to a palazzo ceiling fresco in Campetto, Italy, that was destroyed in World War II. 

Pieter Holsteyn II, Sheet of Studies of a Dragonfly, Grasshopper, Butterflies, Moths, and Beetles, about 1636

Guercino, Spectators Hiding Behind a Barricade, about 1630

There are two sheets by Guercino, a finished red chalk study for a painting in Parma and an inscrutable ink and wash (Spectators Hiding Behind a Barricade). The latter likely pertains to a bullfight or bareback horse race. It is sketched on the back of an accountant's letter that is "filled with courtesies, but sadly has no names, dates, or details that might provide useful information." The artist uses the lines of writing to simulate wood grain. The Getty now has six drawings by Guercino, plus a Pope Gregory XV in oil.

Guercino, Susannah and the Elders, 1649-50

Joseph Wright of Derby, Study of a Boy Reading, about 1766

The Wright of Derby has been identified as a study for a boy in the painting A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on an Orrery, in Which a Lamp is Put in Place of the Sun (Derby Museum). In the unusual medium of grisaille pastel, it broadens the Getty's collection of pastels. So does the Gonzalès and a friendship portrait of Italian sculptor Antonio Canova by Irish contemporary Hugh Douglas Hamilton. 

Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Portrait of Antonio Canova, 1787

Thomas Couture, Study for "The Decadence of the Romans," 1846-47

This large (24-in. wide) chalk drawing is said to be the only compositional study for the mammoth painting in the Musée d'Orsay. The Decadence of the Romans is a staple of art history slide shows, as a specimen of Salon art and/or camp taste.

Odilon Redon, The Battle of the Bones, about 1881

This makes four Redon drawings for the Getty, each freaky in its own way. Battle of the Bones is charcoal with skeletons in reserve.

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, Study of a Seated Boy, 1893

In 1933 J. Paul Getty impulsively bought ten paintings by fashionable Spanish plein-air master Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, whose reputation was taking a nose dive. Getty's museum has since sold several of the paintings—but this is the only work by Sorolla that it has ever bought.

Edgar Degas, At Rest After the Bath, 1896

This charcoal/pastel must be based on a very similar photograph already in the Getty collection. The artist chose it for an 1897 book of Twenty Drawings. At the Getty, it makes five Degas bathers in painting, drawing, and photography. 

Giovanni Boldini, La Route, 1907 

Four of the newly acquired drawings, including the Gonzalès Maid of Honor, will go on view at the Getty Center's West Pavilion on May 21, 2024. Other works are to appear in "Paper and Light," a PST ART exhibition opening Oct. 15, 2024.