The dynamic use of red chalk made Simone Cantarini's drawings some of the most sought-after by eighteenth-century collectors. The mount and collector's marks present with these sheets by the artist, a Holy Family with Saint Anne above and Saint John the Baptist Writing and Standing Women below, provide insight into the kind of provenance shared by many Crocker drawings: the Holy Family was once owned by the eighteenth-century French collector Pierre Crozat, later joined by the other drawing in the collection of the courtier and lawyer Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville, the two passing to the dealer Lenglier and then to the nineteenth-century Aixois lawyer de Bourguignon de Fabregoules and the Parisian banker Flury-Hérard.(1) The latter's sale was in 1861, fewer than ten years before the drawings' purchase by the Crockers.

Born in Pesaro in 1612 to a merchant family, Simone Cantarini trained—after overcoming parental opposition—under the painters Giacomo Pandolfi and Claudio Ridolfi. He seems to have limited himself to learning the rudiments of art since he took on little of their style, profiting more from seeing the works of artists like Federico Barocci and Orazio Gentileschi. At the age of twenty, however, he was enraptured by Guido Reni's altarpieces in Pesaro and Fano, and resolved to meet the artist. He entered Guido's studio in 1635, absorbing as much as he could while concealing his real talent. Upon discovery, he proclaimed himself Reni's rival rather than a pupil which, though the elder master still supported his talent, exploded their relationship by 1638, when Cantarini left Bologna. In Pesaro in 1639 for the marriage of his sister, the artist went to Rome in the next years, where he discovered the works of Raphael. At Guido's death in 1642, Cantarini sought to replace him in Bologna, opening his own studio and finding patrons among those whom he had not yet alienated. In 1647, invited by Carlo II Gonzaga to paint his portrait in Mantua, Cantarini managed to lose both favor and the commission. Falling ill shortly afterwards, he travelled to Verona for a change of air, where he died the next year of his bitterness or, perhaps, poison.

"Il più corretto disegnatore ch'abbia mai avuto il nostro secolo [The most proper draughtsman of our century]."(2) Malvasia's assessment of Cantarini's talent as a draughtsman is based on his probable first-hand knowledge of his working method. As he tells us, Cantarini created sculptural models to draw from, not only heads which the biographer saw repeated in several paintings but also clay figures upon which he arranged drapery made of dampened paper. He would have then made many drawings which he corrected and copied before making a full, dynamic version of the composition.

It seems that Malvasia's description of Cantarini's working method may have merit, since nearly every figure in the Crocker Holy Family with Saint Anne is shared with at least one other work, though no finished painting or print is known. One print (not in Bartsch), a simpler Holy Family, employs the motif of the Child climbing into the Virgin's lap identically, with the Crocker drawing recording a superimposed alternate position for the Child's head.(3) The difference between the latter and the print's incised modello (Rome, Gab. Naz. inv. no. F. C. 125847) points to a common ancestor rather than a direct relationship. The figure of the carpenter Joseph planing a board is shared by a drawing in Milan,(4) with differences in the position of the leading leg. The pose of Anne holding up the curtain is similar to that of Joseph in another print.(5)

In the lower drawing, on the other hand, seemingly unrelated figures are juxtaposed on the same sheet. At left, the figure of John the Baptist writing is related to the altarpiece of the Immaculate Conception with Saints John the Baptist, Nicholas of Tolentino and Euphemia of 1632–34 now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Bologna.(6) Another preparatory drawing for the figure, which likely preceded the Crocker drawing since it includes elements of the composition that do not appear in the finished version, is in the National Gallery of Canada.(7) The female figures on the right have been related to the subject of the infant Hippomenes and Atalanta,(8) though this does not explain the third, kneeling figure at lower right, perhaps better seen in a religious context. The standing figure in the background seems unrelated to either of the other motifs.

William Breazeale, in William Breazeale, with Cara Denison, Stacey Sell, and Freyda Spira, A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 2010