Joshua Reynolds writes the Director of the Uffizi Gallery. REYNOLDS, SIR JOSHUA, P.R.A. 1723-1792. Letter, contemporary archival Italian manuscript copy of the original text, written in a fluid late 18th-century administrative hand, to Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni ('Sig:r Pelli'), Director of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. London ('Di Londra'), 26 January 1776. 3 pages, folio (303 x 215 mm). Written on a single bifolium of laid paper with light age-toning and a few holes from ink corrosion, docketed 'Num: XXVIII' and 'Copia di Lettera...' at head, London ('Di Londra'), 26 January 1776. AN IMPORTANT ART HISTORICAL LETTER REVEALING SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S PROFOUND REVERENCE FOR MICHELANGELO AND HIS CELEBRATED SELF-PORTRAIT SENT TO THE FLORENTINE COURT. This remarkable document records the correspondence between the founding President of the Royal Academy of Arts, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Giuseppe Pelli Bencivenni (1729-1808), the highly influential director of the Uffizi Gallery under Grand Duke Leopold. The original exchange occurred at a pivotal moment in late Enlightenment art history: the arrival of Reynolds's iconic Self-Portrait in Florence for inclusion in the legendary Uffizi collection of artist self-portraits (Collezione di autoritratti). Writing from London, Reynolds expresses his immense pride and boundless gratitude upon learning that his portrait has won the favor of the Grand Duke ('il mio Ritratto s'ha ottenuto il compartimento del Sig.r Arciduca Granduca'), whom he praises for possessing a flawless judgment over 'works of the brush' (opere di pennello).Crucially, the document provides an invaluable visual and symbolic commentary on the painting itself. In an extensive, highly informative left-margin postscript, the text explicitly breaks down the allegorical composition of the artwork:'Il Ritratto porta che il Pittore tenga in mano un Fascio di carte sopra le quali è scritto Disegni di Michelangelo'(The Portrait shows that the Painter holds in his hand a bundle of papers upon which is written: 'Drawings of Michelangelo'). This direct marginal note contextualizes Reynolds's broader academic philosophy. In the main text, he notes that his championing of Michelangelo in his annual Discourses on Art delivered to the Royal Academy was meant to continuously showcase the High Renaissance master 'not only as the primary, but as the unique model to all those who cultivate the Arts of Drawing [disegno]'. As an articulation of 18th-century British academic theory intersecting directly with the Medici-Habsburg legacy of connoisseurship in Florence, this letter represents an elite archival piece of primary art history. Though entirely art-historical in its subject matter, this correspondence from the winter of 1776 catches the President of the Royal Academy at the absolute zenith of his career, working in a London completely preoccupied by the unfolding American Revolutionary War. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing