Triumphal Procession with Elephant

This is one of a group of drawings formerly attributed to the Venetian monk Bernardo Parentino but now instead associated with an artist named Bernardino from Parenzo, in Croatia, who had worked for Francesco II Gonzaga in Mantua in the 1480s and was then in Padua by the 1490s. The drawings (see also inv. I, 80) exhibit the fascination with all'antica motifs so common to Mantuan and Paduan art in the wake of Squarcione, Mantegna, and Zoppo. Intensely worked, the drawing was likely produced as a finished work for humanist collectors rather than as a preparatory study for a painting or print.
Watermark: none visible through lining.