European Drawings 2: Catalogue of the Collections

ANDREA DEL SARTO

1486-1530

i Drapery Study

r

Study of a Nude Man

v

Red chalk; H: 28 cm (11 in.); W: 15.2 cm (6 in.)
89.GB.5 3

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: (Verso) unidentified col-
lection mark; inscribed ij in brown ink.

PROVENANCE: Art market, Basel; art market, London.

EXHIBITIONS: European Drawings, Hazlitt, Gooden and
Fox, Ltd., London, November-December 1988, no. 5.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: D. Bull, "London Old Master Draw-
ings," Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1030 (January 1989),

P-49-

THE RECTO AND VERSO OF THIS SHEET WERE IDENTI-

fied in 1988 by G. Goldner and N. Turner (Hazlitt,

Gooden and Fox, Ltd., no. 5), respectively, as studies for

the figure of Moses in the Transfiguration embroidered on

the hood of a cape, part of the vestments given by

Margherita Passerini to the cathedral of Cortona in I526.^1

These vestments were probably commissioned by her

son, Cardinal Silvio Passerini. The parts based on Sarto's

designs are usually dated on stylistic grounds to between

1522 and 1525.

The drapery study on the recto illustrates Sarto's so-

phisticated command of red chalk with varied textural

and tonal results. The nude study for Moses on the verso

is much more summary and was made solely to develop

the overall pose of the figure.

i. C. Caneva, in Andrea del Sarto 1486-1530: Dipinti e disegni a

Firenze, exh. cat. (Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1986), pp. 118-21,

no. 14.

ANDREA DEL SARTO • ITALIAN SCHOOL 19