European Drawings - 1, Catalogue of the Collections

BERNARDINO POCCETTI (BernardinoBarbatelli)

31 A Seated Man

Red chalk; H: 39.4 cm (1 5 Vi in.); W: 24.7 cm (^V 4 m.)

85.06.29 1

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS! None.

PROVENANCE: Sale, Sotheby's, London, July 2, 1984, lot

74; art market, London.

EXHIBITIONS: None.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.

THIS IS ONE OF NUMEROUS INDIVIDUAL FIGURE DRAW-

ings done by Poccetti in chalk as studies for painted com-

positions. In the Sotheby's sale catalogue (1984, lot 74),

the male subject of the Museum's drawing is related to

figures in frescoes of the Massacre of the Innocents in the

Ospedale degli Innocenti, Florence, and of the martyr-

dom of saints Nereo and Achilleo in the Cappella del

Giglio, Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, also in Flor-

ence. Other analogous seated men may be found at the

upper right of Poccetti's altarpiece (1601) for the church

of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, and at the left of

his fresco of a scene from the life of Saint Antonino in the

Museo di San Marco, Florence. These relationships to

painted images, as well as the similarity to Poccetti's

drawing of a seated woman^1 for the fresco in the chapel

of the Madonna del Soccorso, SS. Annunziata, Florence,

suggest a date for the Museum's drawing of roughly

1600-1610. Although the drawing has not as yet been

connected to a known painted figure, it appears very

likely that it was meant to be seen from below; this is sug-

gested by the position of the legs and the angle of the

man's face and right arm.

i. P. Hamilton, Disegni di Bernardino Poccetti, exh. cat., Gabi-

netto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence, 1980, no. 55.

(^82) ITALIAN SCHOOL • POCCETTI