BARTOLOMEO PASSAROTTI (BOLOGNA 1529 - 1592)
Head of a horse - Pegasus
pen and ink on paper
240 x 230 mm
framed

This expressive head of a horse likely constituted a preparatory sketch for Perseus’ horse, Pegasus, seen on the right in Passarotti's Perseus freeing Andromeda painted in the late 1570s and now in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin (inv. no. 254). Passarotti revelled in the depiction of expressive faces and animals and shared in the late-mannerist penchant for the the grotesque as witnessed by the fantastical sea monster directly below Pegasus in the bottom right of the Turin painting.