Tempelgang van Maria

508 Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple

Inv. no. K II 103
Red chalk, traces of white chalk, on medium tan paper. Traces of a framing line in red chalk along the top; framing line in pencil elsewhere. Minor paper loss at top right (made up).
215 x 230 mm
Watermark: Rampant panther ✴
Provenance: Odescalchi; acquired for the Museum in 1790
(L. 2392)

A copy, slightly trimmed at bottom and top, after Jacopo Tintoretto’s painting on the organ shutters in Santa Maria dell’Orto, Venice. The attribution to Mola is based on stylistic grounds, through comparison with his red chalk copies after Theatrum Pictorium compositions in the British Museum (inv. 1963,1109.30 recto and verso and inv. 1963,1109.31; Turner 1999, nos. 231 and 232; see also cat. no. 510). In this case the copy was evidently done after the painting itself, witness the copyist’s uncertainties in rendering the less prominent figures in darker areas of the canvas; he was evidently barely able to discern the man crouching at the top of the steps, next to the high priest. In this copy Mola’s hand is most readily apparent in the woman and child seated on the steps at bottom right, characteristic of his ‘types’.
According to Boschini (ed. 1966, p. 219), Mola was in Venice from December 1643 to May 1644, engaged on making copies of Venetian paintings for Cardinal Alessandro Bichi. The present drawing, as well as other drawn copies after Venetian models (cf. cat. no. 509), presumably dates from this period, though it cannot be excluded that Mola visited Venice on other occasions as well during his Wanderjahre between 1634 and 1646. His biographer Passeri (ed. Hess, p. 367) says that upon leaving Rome the artist went immediately and “con ogni celerità” to Venice, which would suggest a date ca. 1635 for the initial visit. Petrucci (2012, pp. 289-298) believes Mola first visited Venice around 1640.