On the morning of 11 December, at 10:00 am, the auction “Old Master Paintings and Drawings” will begin — a fascinating journey through the styles and poetics of European and Italian works on paper. Among the most significant pieces is Venus, Mars and Cupid (Lot 41), an elegant pen and brown ink drawing on paper, and the rare Deposition of Christ from the early sixteenth-century Tuscan school (Lot 11), previously associated with Suor Plautilla Nelli and now attributed to the Peruginesque circle or to the early-sixteenth-century followers of Fra Bartolomeo.

Also of great importance is the study attributed to Jusepe de Ribera, Studies for the Head of Saint Jerome and the Lion (Lot 24), confirmed by Nicola Spinosa and Nicholas Turner — an exceptionally rare sheet executed with brush and watercolor, in which the search for painterly substance takes precedence over the traditional graphic approach.

Completing the selection is a delicate Adoration of the Shepherds by Giulio Cesare Procaccini (Lot 7), a small graphic gem from the master’s Genoese period, revealing his miniaturist touch and his dialogue with the great figurative tradition of the “Superba.”