European Drawings 2: Catalogue of the Collections

J AC OP O TINTORETTO ( Jacopo Robusti)

1518-1594

47 Studies of a Statuette ofAtlas

r

Studies of a Statuette of Atlas

and a Figure Praying

v

Black chalk and white chalk heightening; H: 25.5 cm (10

in.); W: 39. i cm (i5^7 /i6 in.)

89.05.72

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: (Recto) at bottom margin,

inscribed tintoretto in brown ink.

PROVENANCE: C. R. Rudolf, London (sale, Sotheby's,

London, July 4, 1977, lot 93); S. Abate, Boston; sale,

Christie's, London, April 19, 1988, lot 41; art market,

New York.

EXHIBITIONS: Old Master Drawings from the Collection of

Mr. C. R. Rudolf, Arts Council of Great Britain, Lon-

don, 1962, no. 69; Sculptors' Drawings over Six Centuries

1400-1950, Drawing Center, New York, 1987, no. 12

(catalogue by C. Eisler).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.

THIS IS ONE OF AT LEAST FIFTEEN DRAWINGS BY TlN-

toretto and his workshop of a figure of Atlas which are

copied from a design by Sansovino, the latter known

through a bronze in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts,

Moscow. The identification of the source for these stud-

ies was first made by M. Liebmann,^1 who initially con-

sidered the bronze a studio work but later followed H.

Weihrauch^2 in accepting a full attribution of it to San-

sovino himself. Weihrauch dated the bronze to the 15405,

a hypothesis that gains from the fact that Tintoretto

loosely based a number of figures in his paintings on it,

beginning not later than 1549 with Saint Roch Ministering

to the Plague-Stricken (Venice, Chiesa di San Rocco).^3 As

has been pointed out by K. Pask, the same figure reap-

pears with variations in a number of further paintings by

Tintoretto,^4 though in each instance with small differ-

ences from the Sansovino model. The small framed

sketch on the verso of the sheet may represent an idea for

a portrait. Lastly, the subtle surface handling and ani-

mated outline argue for the attribution of this sheet to

Tintoretto himself.

1. Soobshcheniya Akademiya Nauk Institut Istorii Iskusstv 13-14
   (1960), pp. 154-65-


2. "Italienische Bronzen als Vorbilder deutscher Gold-
   schmiedekunst," Festschrift TheodorMiiller (Munich, 1965), pp.
   266-67; M. Liebmann, in Western European Sculpture from So-
   viet Museums: i$th and loth Centuries (Leningrad, 1988), no. 56.


3. B. Wipper, Tintoretto (Moscow, 1948), p. 16.


4. Antiope and Jove (Modena, Galleria Esténse) ; David and Bath-
   sheba (Vienna, Kunsthistoriches Museum); Martyrdom of Saint
   Mark (Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique);
   Miracle of Saint Mark (Accademia).

TINTORETTO • ITALIAN SCHOOL 121