The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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0521551331 c 01 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 10 , 2007 22 : 22

CATALOGUE 8 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 93

the Ancestors in the lunettes were painted concurrently

with the frescoes above them on the curved part of

the vault. The restoration of the 1980 s and consequent

close examination of the vault seems to have substantiated

this second view. However, some flexibility is not to be

excluded. It need not be assumed that the sequence of

execution was an invariable series of north–south “slices”

across the upper part of the chapel, comprising the histo-

ries at the top of the vault, theignudiaround and below

them, the Prophets and Sibyls in the pendentives, the

Ancestor groups in the severies, and the Ancestors in the

lunettes. It may be that more than one lunette on either

side was executed at the same time, after work on the cor-

responding curved parts of the vault above them had been

completed. The present group of sketches could support

such an hypothesis; taken at face value, they would suggest

that the Ancestors in the lunettes at the west end of the

vault were conceived as a group following the preparation

ofGod the Father Separating Light from Darkness, the only

history to be found among them. And if this is so, then

the four lunettes at the end of the chapel – comprising the

two lost lunettes on the altar wall and those at the ends

of the north and south walls – might have been executed

as a group, following the completion of the curved part

of the vault.

It was characteristic of the artist to make the initial

designs for individual figures and compositions both in

painting and sculpture in small scale drawings,concetti.In

the first part of his career, he generally made these in

pen, but examples also survive in chalk, which seems to

have taken over entirely from about153 0. The present

drawings do not differ greatly from the small sketches

made in preparation for theMadonnain Bruges (Uffizi

233 Frecto/B 1 /Corpus 37 ;black chalk and pen and ink,

271 × 261 mm). Although they are much less finished,

they also bear some resemblance to figures found in

the slightly latermodellifor the fac ̧ade of San Lorenzo

(CB 45 A/B 245 /Corpus 497 ; pen and ink, brush and

wash over black chalk, 705 × 870 mm) or for an altar

(Oxford, Christ Church, JBS 64 /Corpus 280 ; pen and

ink and brush and wash,35 0× 291 mm). In the major-

ity of the drawings on the present sheets, Michelangelo

drew angular, even jagged forms, suitable for figures

designed to make an impact from a distance. Indeed,

in their self-conscious roughness – which contrasts with

the more flowingconcettostyle of theCascinaor even

the pen sketches for the SistineFlood– Michelangelo

seems to have intended an effect of harshness: Supremely

capable, when he chose, of designing rhythmical and

close-knit groups, he aimed here at ruggedness. Indeed,

many of these sketches show Michelangelo moving from

more rhythmical to more severe, and from forms seen

at angles to forms seen strictly in profile or strictly

frontally.

Michelangelo seems to have swivelled only two of these

pages, Cats. 12 recto and 13 recto, as he worked on them,

to pen a single figure. In every other instance, he retained

the base of the sheet as determinant. It would seem that

the paper he used was always approximately the present

size and that the sheets were not originally joined.

The sheets show Michelangelo mixing modes among

Ancestors, Prophets,ignudi, and even narratives, transfer-

ring ideas generated in one area to another, and they show

him habitually reversing figures. As was already pointed

out by Ottley, it seems that the larger sketches both in

pen and in black chalk found on some of the pages were

executed from life as were, no doubt, those studies of fig-

ural details, whereas the initialconcettiwould have been

the product of Michelangelo’s imagination.

These eight sheets also contain drawings that do not

seem to have been made expressly for the vault, such

as Cat. 14 recto, as well as others where Michelangelo’s

imagination clearly took wing and he developed ideas

in directions that the project at hand did not require.

In some cases, such sketches anticipate later work by

him.

History

Casa Buonarroti; the sketches on Cats. 9 verso, 13 recto,

and 14 versowere copied by Andrea Commodi when

these sheets were in Casa Buonarroti, and although this

does not prove that all the drawings in this sequence were

then there and remained there, any other reconstruction

of events would entail too many complexities to be plau-

sible. It is therefore probable that the sequence remained

together in Casa Buonarroti until the 1790 s. At this point,

it seems likely that they were split up, and that one group

of four leaves was acquired by Ottley, was discussed in

hisItalian School of Design, and was offered by him in his

sale 6 June 1814 , and following days, lot 264 , “One –

a sheet with two leaves of his sketch book containing

pen studies on both sides, for the vault of the Capella

Sistina – most interesting. From the Buonarroti collec-

tion.” £ 5. 5. 0 , and lot 265 , “One – a sheet with two

ditto, for ditto, ditto.” £ 5. 5. 0 ; pencil annotation Clark,

£ 10. 0. 0 .The other group of four leaves was presumably

acquired by Wicar, was among the drawings bought from

him by Woodburn in 1823 , and rejoined the four that

had been owned by Ottley in Lawrence’s collection. Sir

Thomas Lawrence (L. 2445 on Cats. 11 , 14 , 15 ); Samuel

Woodburn.