Studies of Figures and Animals
Late XVI - Primer cuarto del siglo XVII century. Pencil, Grey-brown ink on brown paper.Not on display
This adn the following eight drawings appear to be by the same mediocre hand, by whom there are several other drawings in the Prado scattered throughout the collection under a number of different attributions. Some carry old attributions to Villamena. while others do not have his name but are connected with the group by virtue of their style and execution; and they are here catalogued as from the artist´s circle. The drawing share the same mechanical hatching in pen and brown ink, revealing an artist with a poor grasp of figurative form.
it is hard to understand the old ascription to the Roman artist Francesco Villamena, who was almost exclusively an engraver after the work of other masters and who carried out few designs of his own. this is especially so, since some influence of the Carracci is detectable in the Prado´s "Villanueva" group, which might suggest that whoever inscribed the drawings may have mistaken Villamena´s name for that of an engraver of the Bolognese School, Giovanni Luigi Valesio (c. 1583-1640), with whose work the Prado drawings do appear to have some sort of tenuous relationship.
The mise-en-page of this and the following drawing suggest that they may derive from prints intended as exemplars for drawing.
