PIER LEONE GHEZZI (ITALIAN 1674-1755)SIXTEEN CARICATURES OF ARISTOCRATS, CLERICS AND TRAVELLERSBlack chalk, pen and brown ink34 x 23cm (13¼ x 9 in.) and smaller (16)Including: The Bishop of Vaison and a Procurator General of the Benedictine Order; Père Calude Sicard (Jesuit); Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Lacroix (playwright); Ercole Michele D'Aragona, Bishop of Aversa; Père Malachie D'Inguimbert (French priest); an abbot; Monsieur Louis Gouffier, Compte de Roanez; Monsieur Carichon (lawyer); Abbot de Charaney; Signor Lasagnero (nobleman); a young man; Canonico Testa; two fathers of the French mission; a gentleman; Mr. Sharp; Monsieur le président VerronProvenance:Richard Neville Neville (1717-1793), and by descent as part of a pair of albums purchased in Paris in 1763, toLord BraybrookeSale, Sotheby's London, 10 December 1979, lots 91, 208, 100 and 54Sale, Christie's London, The Ellerslie House Collection, 24 May 2001 (lots 130-132 and 135-136)A pupil of his father, Giuseppe Ghezzi, at the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, Ghezzi was from an early age encouraged to develop his skills as a draughtsman. While he painted many works for Pope Clement XI, who was to be one of his most loyal patrons, Ghezzi is best known for his pen and ink caricatures of various members of Roman society to which he dedicated himself later in his career. Ghezzi's gently satirical portraits offer an engaging impression of eighteenth-century Roman life, recording the activities of the common people as well as those in the upper strata of society, from high-ranking churchmen and aristocrats to the craftsmen, artists, musicians, and laborers who served them, as well as visitors to Rome including British Grand Tourists. While the practice of making caricature drawings is one that Ghezzi may not be said to have invented, he was certainly the first artist to establish a reputation in this field, so much so that he was known as 'il famoso cavaliere di caricature'. His earliest humourous drawings date from around 1700, and he continued to produce these works for the remainder of his career, selling them to collectors all over Europe.Some three thousand examples have survived, many of these caricature drawings were bound into albums, of which the most significant group is a series of eight volumes - entitled by the artist 'Il Mondo Nuovo' and divided into different categories by subject or profession - in the collection of the Vatican Library. Other albums of caricature drawings by Ghezzi are today in the British Museum, the Morgan Libary, the Kupferstichkabinetts of Berlin and Dresden, the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome, and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.Nineteen of the sheets in the present collection come from a group of 152 caricatures gathered in Rome and bound in the 18th Century as two albums, with each sheet annotated in French with details of the sitter. These albums were bought in Paris in 1763 by Richard Neville Neville (1717-1793), who as Secretary of the British Embassy was charged with negotiating the treaty with France that ended the Seven Years War. A note in Neville's hand on the flyleaf of each album records that they were bought on 7 April 1763 for 10 gns and 5 gns respectively. On Neville's death the albums passed to his son the second Baron Braybrooke, and remained in the family until they were sold at Sotheby's, London, 10 December 1979. The opening sheet of the Braybrooke album shows figures in the salone of Cardinal Melchior de Polignac (1661-1741), a gifted politician and scholar who was French ambassador in Rome from 1724 to 1730. It appears that Ghezzi met the majority of the characters featured in these albums at the Cardinal's house, which may help to explain the preponderance of Frenchmen and clerics. Antonella Pampalone, in her introduction to the 1979 sale catalogue, dates the group to the 1720's.