Julius III Restoring the Duchy of Parma to Ottavio Farnese

The drawing is a workshop copy of a modello for the fresco Julius III Restoring the Duchy of Parma to Ottavio Farnese in the Sala dei Fatti Farnesiani (or Room of the Farnese Deeds) on the piano nobile at the Villa Farnese at Caprarola. The frescoes for that room were designed by Taddeo around 1562-63 and executed in the summer of 1563. The drawing is not a copy after the fresco itself, from which it differs in several details. Instead, it faithfully copies Taddeo’s fully worked and squared modello in the Louvre.¹ Several further copies of the Louvre modello are known, including one conserved in the same collection and another, executed in red chalk and red wash, in a private collection in Belgium (200 x 250 mm).² A note by Philip Pouncey in the departmental file remarks that “Dr. Wittkower has weak version of this. Thinks it’s Zuccaro but it isn’t Zuccaro” – this may refer to the drawing now in Belgium.

An early design by Taddeo for Julius III Restoring the Duchy of Parma to Ottavio Farnese is also in the Morgan’s collection. ³

Footnotes:

1. Louvre, Paris, inv. RF 73; Gere 1969, 143, no. 40.
2. Louvre, Paris, inv. 10308.
3. Morgan Library & Museum, inv. 1973.27.