This exquisite male nude study is a sure work of the great artist from Bologna Ubaldo Gandolfi1, one of the protagonist of the Italian Painting of the second half of the 18th century, which his extraordinary drawing capability made him, as Anton Raphael Mengs during a visit in Bologna said, one of the best draftsman of his time. [….]

Many are, indeed, the papers with study from real, male nude “academies” always of high quality that can be assigned to his catalogues, as this one, as showed by simple confrontations like the one with the aforementioned drawing in Modena or with the Male Nude Sited in the Brera Pinacoteca in Milan5, a splendid sanguine in which the rendering of the right hand is as much insisted as the one of the clasped hands of this one, defined with a sure and clear trait, in the description of the body of the man in a position similar to a praying character, with the intense gaze, not so common in similar study from real, requesting the artist major attention to the rendering of the limbs than to the appearance of the model.

Excerpt of the expertise by Doc. Donatella Biagi Maino