This highly finished example of Lelio Orsi's compositional skill and pictorial talent is related, along with no fewer than ten other surviving sheets, to what must have been the most prestigious commission offered to any artist in the city of Reggio Emilia - the decoration, now lost, of the Torre dell' Orologio in the Piazza del Duomo. The commission, to which Orsi must have clearly devoted enormous effort and thought, was awarded to the painter in November 1544, and the connection with the present drawing is confirmed by the existence, in Reggio Emilia's Civica Pinacoteca Fontanesi, of an anonymous seventeenth century painting, representing a religious feast taking place in the main square. The painting (fig. 1) shows the Torre dell' Orologio embellished just below the clock face, on the side facing the square, with the flamboyant fresco of Apollo driving his Chariot, for which this is a study, then still in situ.

In the catalogue of the 1987 Lelio Orsi exhibition (see Exhibited), it was proposed that the project for decorating the clock tower may initially have involved four paintings, one on each side of the tower and each representing a different season, rather than just the single painting that appears in the surviving visual record of the building. A series of four drawings, formerly in the Jabach collects ion and now in the Louvre, were recognised by Philip Pouncey as the work of Lelio Orsi, and seem to represent a very early phase in the development of the project, which must subsequently have been simplified.¹ These four drawings all include Apollo guiding the chariot of the Sun, accompanied by the god or goddess and zodiacal signs associated with the different seasons. The reason why the project was ultimately limited to the decoration of just the main face of the tower, with a single large fresco and a few monochrome figures towards the top of the building, is not known, but it is certainly true that the surviving drawings for the final image of Apollo guiding the chariot of the Sun are much more striking and impressive than the four earlier drawings in the Louvre which, lacking a similar central focus, appear more like a series of decorative and consecutive friezes. So, although the single fresco of the final decoration might in some ways appear less ambitious than the initial, multi-compositional scheme, the effect on the main face of the tower must in fact have been much more striking and overwhelming.

The sheer power and dynamism of Orsi's ultimate composition is readily apparent in this drawing. The figure of Aurora leads the chariot - driven by a maestoso Apollo - the goddess initiating the day and therefore alluding, appropriately enough for the location, to the passing of t.mes . In the background, various zodiacal signs surround the radiant sun. A total of six drawings (including the present one) relating to this final version of the composition are known, through which we see the artist carefully developing the details of his spectacular image. The other five are in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, the Louvre, Paris, in the Cecil and Milton Hebald collects ion, Los Angeles, and in the Art Institute of Chicago (gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray).²

In terms of completeness, and possible sequence of execution of the various drawings, it is interesting to note that the studies in Windsor and the Louvre³ bear indications of the architectural structure of the tower, with its cornices resting on corbels, leaving no doubt as to the intended destination of the painting. But the present sheet appears to be the most complete of all, clearly inserting the central image bursting from the clouds into a visible sky; in the three other more finished versions (Windsor, Milan and Chicago), the clouds are only slightly indicated below Aurora's feet, at the bottom of the sheet.

Like the version now in Chicago, which must closely precede this sheet, the present work is on paper which has been colored, prior to the execution of the drawing, with a warm, light brown wash (though the shade of brown is slightly different in each case). This color, or a slightly more ochre variant of it, was often used by Orsi to prepare the surface of his most finished sheets. This is certainly the most finished, in terms of draughtsmanship, of the known studies relating to this project and the elaborate use of white heightening, indicating the brightness of the sun and the arrival of the day, strongly contrasts with the skilfully applied brown wash, creating subtle volumes and strong tonalities of chiaroscuri. 

It therefore seems very plausible that this drawing was made as the modello to be presented to the dignitaries of the city of Reggio Emilia responsible for this highly important public commission.

^1. Louvre, Cabinet de Dessins, inv. nos. 3640, 10380, 10381, 10379;

Lelio Orsi..., exhib. cat., op. cit., nos. 10-13, all reproduced

^2. Windsor, Royal Library, inv. no. RL 0224; Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, inv. no. F269; Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 10378 (see Lelio Orsi..., exhib. cat., op. cit., nos. 14-18, all reproduced); Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, inv. no. 2019.855 (see Literature)

^3. Lelio Orsi..., exhib. cat., op. cit., cat. nos. 14 and 18, respectively, reproduced