Copy after Farnese "Flora"

The drawing is a free copy of an antique statue known as the Farnese Flora, now in the Archeological Museum at Naples.¹ The statue is first recorded, in an unrestored state, in three sketches on a single sheet by Maarten van Heemskerck who is known to have been in Rome between 1532 and 1536.² By 1561, the date of a print by Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri, the statue had been restored.³ The Morgan drawing was likely made before this date since it shows the statue unrestored. The statue was in the courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, until 1787 when it was further restored and then sent on to Naples in 1800.

Philip Pouncey suggested attributions both to Biagio Pupini and Girolamo da Carpi. The latter is favored here, especially if one takes into consideration two drawings, similar in handling and style, attributed to Girolamo da Carpi from the De Pass collection and now in the Royal Cornwall Museum at Truro.⁴ One of these is of a Dancing Nymph after the antique sarcophagus from Villa Borghese, now in the Louvre, the other of an amazon on horseback, already given to Girolamo da Carpi since Jonathan Richardson Sr.’s days and accepted as such by A. E. Popham. Da Carpi is documented as having been in Rome from 1549 to 1553.

Footnotes:

1. Haskell and Penny 1981, 217-219, no. 41.
2. Hülsen and Egger 1913-16, 33-34.
3. Cavaleriis 1560-94, 1: pl. 11.
4. Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, inv. 1928.371, 1917.9.21. See Joannides in London and Truro 1994, 22-25, no. 6, 7.