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92 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 8to Michelangelo.); no. 223 (Verso: drapery study nei-
ther by Michelangelo nor the author of the recto.Ricordo
establishes date15 2 3– 4 .). Thode, 1913 ,no. 422 (Why
should recto not be by Michelangelo? The only other
Florentine artist that it recalls is Andrea del Sarto. Verso:
hard to judge, but inscriptions are autograph.). Berenson,
1938 ,no.15 6 5(As 1903 .). Kleiner, 1950 ,p. 25 (Recto:
school of Michelangelo, after head ofBoy on a Dolphin.
Ricordoattaches sheet to his studio and demonstrates rel-
evance of recto for theignudoleft aboveErythraeaand for
the faun accompanying theBacchus.). Wilde, 1953 exh.,
no. 131 (Verso: by Michelangelo: the drawing may be con-
siderably earlier than the inscription; purpose unknown.).
Parker, 1956 ,no. 375 (Recto: somewhat reworked. “The
elaborate modelling recalls the Cavalieri presentation
drawings, but it seems out of the question that Michelan-
gelo or indeed any of his close followers could have been
the draughtsman. P. M. R. Pouncey hesitates between
Naldini and Poppi.”); no. 42 (Verso: style of Jacopo della
Quercia “essentially ‘early’ and primitive in character...a
work of about 1430 .” Thericordois in Michelangelo’s
hand and of15 2 3– 4 .). Dussler, 1959 ,no. 618 (Recto: by a
follower of Michelangelo. Verso: by a quattrocento artist,
near Quercia.). Berenson, 1961 ,no.15 6 5(As 1903 / 1938 .).
Degenhart and Schmitt, 1968 ,I, 1 ,no. 116 (Verso: by
Jacopo della Quercia?.). Gardner, 1972 ,pp. 33 – 4 (“[W]e
are asked to imagine that Michelangelo was so cavalier
as to scrawl over the century-old drawing, while the
recto was later used for a study after the antique.” Com-
pares recto with Michelangelo’sStanding Prophetin the
BM, W 1 /Corpus 6 .). De Tolnay, 1975 , Corpus I, no. 7
(Verso: by Michelangelo, 1494 – 15 0 0, after Quercia, per-
haps done in Bologna. Recto: by or after a dilettante stu-
dent of Michelangelo’s c. 1532 .). Macandrew, 1980 ,p. 267
(Recto: “P. M. R. Pouncey is now convinced that this
is by Francesco Morandini.”). Sisi, 1988 ,no. 6 (Verso:
drapery study related to mantle ofMadonnaon Jacopo
della Quercia’s Bentivoglio Monument in San Giacomo
Maggiore, Bologna.). Perrig, 1999 ,p. 247 (By a pupil
of Michelangelo; from via Mozza studio.). Weil-Garris
Brandt et al., 1999 – 2000 ,p. 339 (Recto: attributed to
Jacopo della Quercia.).GENERAL DISCUSSION9–16
These eight sheets, which contain some sixty sketches,
werethoroughly and excellently analysed by Robinson
and Thode and, more recently, and still more exhaustivelybyde Tolnay in the Corpus, supplemented and in places
corrected by Hirst in several closely observed contri-
butions. The attribution of these drawings to a pupil
first made by Berenson and followed by several schol-
ars, including Baumgart, who considered them to be by
Daniele da Volterra, now seems obviously a misjudge-
ment, based largely on a misconception of these draw-
ings’ function: They are not developed studies but rough
and vigorousprimi pensieri.
The drawings on these pages relate to the later sec-
tion of the Sistine vault, which was painted following
the interruption of the work in151 0– 11. They prepare
figures found in the ninth and last narrative bay of the
crown of the vault,God the Father Separating Light from
Darkness, for one or more of theignudisurrounding this
episode, for the final Prophet to be painted,Ionas, and
perhaps forLibica,and for a number of the Ancestors of
Christ in the lunettes (butnotthose in the severies). The
drawings for Ancestors are by far the most numerous and
those with which the drawings can be connected are all
to be found below the second half of the vault, from the
Asa-Iosaphatlunette on the south wall of the chapel and
theRoboam-Abiaslunette on the north wall, to the lost
lunettes on the altar wall, which were destroyed nearly
a quarter century after they were painted to make way
for theLast Judgement.This distribution of drawings, in
which the Ancestors of Christ receive so much atten-
tion, must in part be the result of an accident of survival.
No more than one of the drawings on these pages can
at all confidently be connected with the pendentives of
Hamanand theBrazen Serpent, which must have occupied
much of Michelangelo’s intellectual energies during the
last months of painting, and which must have required
many drawings. Nor can the very limited number con-
nected with theignudiand the Prophets and Sibyls be at
all representative. However, although allowances must be
made for arbitrary survival – this sub-set itself is incom-
plete, as is demonstrated by the offset of a lost sketch vis-
ible on Cat. 9 recto – and even though accident may cre-
ate a distorted picture of Michelangelo’s design sequence,
the present sketchbook does suggest that the Ancestors
in the second half of the vault were mostly designed after
the histories and the majority of theignudiin the crown
of the vault had already been planned.
The order in which Michelangelo painted the different
parts of the vault has been controversial. In the past many
scholars believed that the entire series of the Ancestors in
the lunettes – which occupy the tops of the walls rather
than the vault and are on flat, vertical, surfaces – was
painted afterallthe work on the curved part of the vault
had been completed. Wilde, on the other hand, held that