Port scene.

Drawing, pen and brown ink, blue/grey wash, traces of black chalk, 16 x 21,8 cm, laid paper, unsigned (some min. stains).

Oval drawing with sailors disembarking and unloading a small ship. Two resting sailors are looking on. Probably a design for an applied arts piece, such as a glass roundel or a silver platter. The linear style of drawing and the rendering of the figures is close to the style of Lazzaro Tavarone (1556-1641). He was a student of the Genoese painter Luca Cambiaso, whom he accompanied to Spain in 1583 for a commission to decorate the interior paintings of the Escorial. Ten years later he returned to Genoa where he had a thriving career as a portraitist and fresco painter. This drawing with its spare use of lines approaches the early drawings of Tavarone which still show strong influences from Cambiaso.
Ref. Le dessin à Gênes du XVIe au XVIII siècle, in: Exhib. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1985, no. 23. - M. Newcombe, "Drawings by Tavarone", in: Paragone 32 (1981), pp. 44-52.