The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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0521551331 c 01 -p 3 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 14

240 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 49

( 46 Frecto/B 149 /Corpus 37 8;black chalk, irregular

95 ×c. 100 mm, maximum), which is very close indeed in

handling and treatment to the recto of the ex–Gathorne-

Hardy sheet. This is a study that, once again, focuses on

the shoulders and the upper arms. It is doubtful if it ever

showed more than the upper part of the chest, and that

no more than outlined. This drawing must have been

made at the same time as the other two, but the form is

seen, once again, from a slightly different and more ele-

vated angle. The head seems less animate than in the the

ex–Gathorne-Hardy study, and this study, by itself, could

well be taken as for the torso of the dead Christ. How-

ever, that Michelangelo intended to represent a live figure

seems on balance more likely, and a further piece of evi-

dence supporting this view is that the study on CB 46 F

wasdrawn over a lighter sketch that, although difficult

to make out with precision, seems to be a study of the

same torso, bent forwards to the left, seen obliquely from

the figure’s right. In this last drawing, the figure’s right

forearm is visible, bent at right angles to the upper arm,

adetail not included, and probably not envisaged, either

in the present drawing or the ex–Gathorne-Hardy study.

De Tolnay connected both the drawings on the recto

of our sheet with attendant soldiers in theCrucifixion of

St. Peterin the Pauline Chapel, thus entailing for them and

the associated studies a date before155 0.There are some

similarities of pose, but the figures de Tolnay cited are

more complex in torsion and more tense in musculature,

and, in any case, the style of all four associated drawings

seems to be of a later period. Indeed, de Tolnay accepted

for the drawings on the verso of the present sheet a date of

c.155 7.Asheand all other scholars have noted, the main

study on the verso – which the compiler tends to think

is entirely by Michelangelo, without later additions –

is clearly for aCrucified Christ,seen severely frontally.

Michelangelo was preoccupied with the theme of the

Crucifixion in his last years, but these drawings cannot be

connected closely with any of his other representations of

the theme, whether known from surviving drawings or

copies. However, one fragmentary drawing, in the Louvre

(Inv. 842 recto/J 41 /Corpus 422 ;black chalk, 242 × 132

mm), which shows Christ still alive on the Cross, arms

outstretched horizontally in a neo-dugentesque manner,

demonstrates that Michelangelo experimented with such

ascheme. The Louvre study, however, is probably a few

years later than the present drawings.

The detail and intensity of the plasticity indicated in

both drawings suggests that they were not made in prepa-

ration for a Presentation Drawing but for a work in

another medium, more likely sculpture than painting. We

know from letters that Michelangelo planned to carve a

Crucified Christin wood late in15 6 2,and although the