Head of an Two Old Men. Verso: Head of Old Man

Ubaldo Gandolfi was one of the finest Bolognese draftsman of the mid- to late-eighteenth century. Both he and his brother Gaetano (1734-1802) broke from conventional Bolognese models, namely the Carracci, and demonstrated a "detached retrieval of motives, details and compositional choices" that looked to other traditions in art in Bologna. Ubaldo's prolific output of drawings includes many academic studies of models. This drawing, executed in brown pen and ink, might have been made during his time at the Accademia Clementina di Pittura, Scultura, e Architettura in Bologna, where between 1745-1749 he won three medals for figure studies (Donatella Biagimaino, Gaetano e Ubaldo Gandolfi. Turin, 2002, page 105).