Circle of ANTONIO DI PUCCIO PISANO, called PISANELLO

Known for his masterful depictions of animals, Pisanello was, in the words on one scholar, ‘one of the keenest observers and finest delineators of men’s features and animals’ forms that the art of the Western world has produced.’ Many of his surviving drawings, and those of his school, are of animals that appear in larger works. Greyhounds and other hunting dogs are found in a number of Pisanello’s paintings and drawings, such as in the damaged fresco of The Parting of Saint George and the Princess of Silena of c.1434-1438 in the church of Sant’Anastasia in Verona and a highly finished drawing of A Nobleman on a Mule, Hawking with Five Hounds in the Lugt collection at the Fondation Custodia in Paris.

This very fine drawing of a greyhound, of exceptional quality, was long attributed to Pisanello. Indeed, a very similar head of a greyhound appears, albeit in reverse, in the foreground of Pisanello’s small panel painting of The Vision of Saint Eustace, where it is depicted coursing a hare. Probably painted between 1438 and 1442, the painting is today in the National Gallery in London. The Vision of Saint Eustace has been aptly described as ‘Not an altarpiece, not merely a narrative, but a pretext for showing Pisanello’s skill in depicting different animals and for the patron to marvel at their poetic variety and the mystery of the inhabitants of the wooded landscape.’ The position of the head of the hound in the present sheet is nearly identical to that of the dog in the painting, and both animals wear very similar collars.

Among the large corpus of surviving drawings by Pisanello and his circle are several studies of greyhounds and other dogs, some seemingly drawn from life and others taken from model books or copied from the work of earlier artists. These include a number of autograph drawings of greyhounds from the Vallardi album in the Louvre, which also contains drawings of several other breeds by Pisanello. An interesting comparison may also be made with a similar dog that appears in a drawing of three hounds chasing and devouring rabbits from the Vallardi album in the Louvre. Drawn in pen and brown ink with watercolour on vellum, although in a manner somewhat more naïve and much less refined than the present sheet, the Louvre drawing was formerly attributed to Pisanello but is now given to the earlier Lombard painter and illuminator Michelino da Besozzo (c.1370-c.1455). A copy of part of that drawing, by a different hand which is sometimes thought be that of Pisanello himself, was likewise part of the Vallardi album.

Given its undeniable quality, it is unsurprising that this 15th century drawing has long held an attribution to Pisanello, under whose name it was exhibited in Paris in 1932. The naturalistic representation of the muzzle of the greyhound, beautifully drawn in a subtle combination of black and red chalks, has something of the characteristics of a formal profile portrait, characterized by an innate nobility and dignity. The close study of the creature’s nose and ear and intensely focused sharp eye, as well as the finely drawn smooth coat and studded leather collar with a buckle, all point to an artist of considerable skill.

The present sheet is one of two drawings given to Pisanello that were at one time in the collection of the Parisian art dealer Lucien Guiraud (d.1954), and which were lent by him to an exhibition of Pisanello’s work at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris in 193213. The drawing had been acquired by Guiraud from the collection of the art historian Charles Molinier (1843-1911) of Toulouse, whose mark it bears. A professor of art history at the University of Toulouse, Molinier began collecting drawings in 1875, acquiring them in Paris and the south of France, as well as in several trips to Italy. On his death his collection was inherited by his children and the drawings gradually dispersed to collectors and dealers, such as Guiraud.