Leaf from a Sketchbook

Jacques Callot 1592 - 1635

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Jacques Callot. It is a landscape with open water in the foreground and hills and mountains beyond. There are three ships in the water; the two on the right are very similar in design, whereas the one of the left is lower. The hills in the background are blue and green, and beyond them to the left of the centre is a single snow-covered mountain. At the top of the composition is a white banner with an inscription. Nos. 32-35 in this collection are grouped together in the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society. The text reads: "Nos. 32-35 JACQUES CALLOT (b. 1592; d. 1635) Collection of A. A. de Pass, Esq. Formerly in the Collections of Hugh Reveley and Phili[[e Huart. Leaves from a sketch-book, containing sketches of coast-towns, ships, boats, figures, &c., made on a voyage in the Mediterranean, in the months of August and September, 1620. The leaves have been mounted on the pages of a small book, on the first page of which is written, Vedute di Cittá e diferenti Luoghi disegnati da J Callot, ob. 1635, nel suo Viaggio nel Mar Mediterraneo, A. D. 1620. At this first page is inserted the portrait of Callot engraved by Bosse. At the end of the book is the book-plate of Hugh Reveley, LL. B., of Christ ChuRch, Oxford. Above the sketches of places are inscriptions, presumably copied from the artist's own memoranda, and in some cases repeating inscriptions at the back of the drawings themselves. From these notes it appears that the ship which carried Callot was at Minorea on August 19 (where previously, we do not know), touched at the North African coast on the 24th, and Sardinia on September 1; was at Trapani on the 12th, at Syracuse on the 19th, and after touching at other places in Sicily and the Lipari Islands reached Bonifazio in Corsica on October 2. This voyage, hitherto unrecorded, occupied part of the last year of the artist's sojourn in Florence. In 1621, or early in 1622, at the instance of Charles Lorraine, he left Italy for good and returned to France. The little book measures 13.2 x 18.7 cm. (5 1/4 x 7 3/8 in.), and contains forty-five sketches on thirty-seven pages, some of the studies of figures being on smaller pieces of paper. ... MILAZZO IN SICILY Pen and ink, with water-colour wash. 9.1 x 13 cm. (3 5/8 x 5 1/8 in.). View of the town with Etna rising snowy beyond the hills of the coast. Two ships and a felucca are in the bay. On a scroll in the sky is L'Uno me noce e l'altro Altrui. The page on which the sketch is mounted is inscribed Milazzo in Sicilia a di 14, 7bre, 1620 (p. 11 of the book). ... LAURENCE BINYON."