The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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CATALOGUE 76 STUDIO DRAWINGS AND DRAWINGS OF UNDETERMINED STATUS 327

Left side

With the lower edge as base

A.The thigh-bone of B.

B.Askeleton, seen from the front.

C.Immediately to the right of B. An indecipherable

form.

D. Immediately below C. An area of hatching, perhaps

indicating a knee.

E.Study of the bent left leg of a seated figure, seen in

right profile.

F. Immediately below D. Study of the bent left leg of a

seated figure, seen from above.

Right Side

With the left edge as base

G.Study of the bent left leg and part of the abdomen and

upper right leg of a seated figure, seen from above.

H.Study of the bent left leg of a seated figure, seen from

above.

I. Three wavy pen lines.

With the right edge as base

J. Study of the bent left leg and part of the upper right

knee of a seated figure, seen in right profile.

K.Study of the bent left leg of a seated figure, seen in

right profile.

Discussion

Recto

The handling of pen on the recto of this sheet is looser and

wilder than is usual with Montelupo’s drawings, and it was

probably executed soon after he joined Michelangelo’s

team in 1533 .Itmayhave been made from memory or,

perhaps, in the case of the seated figure on the recto, from

arough model for Duke Giuliano. It is likely that several

models were made for the dukes as Michelangelo worked

them out: There are, for example, a number of copies by

Tintoretto or members of his studio of a model of the

figure of Duke Giuliano in the nude.

As Berenson and Parker noted, the female head in

black chalk [F] is very reminiscent in style of Antonio

Mini (compare his profile drawing in Florence, CB 40 A

verso/B 98 /Corpus 177 ;black chalk, 400 × 243 mm);

Raffaello was certainly aware of some drawings by Mini

and, indeed, sometimes drew on the other side of sheets

previously employed by Mini: It seems likely that he was

here copying a copy by Mini of a now-lost drawing by

Michelangelo.

Sketch B was pursued further by Raffaello on a sheet

of drawings in the British Museum, 1946 - 7 - 13 - 36 ; pen

and ink, 204 × 256 mm. This sheet also bears draw-

ings probably connected with the fireplace design on

Cat. 79.

Verso

The skeleton on the verso is reminiscent of one found

on a sheet of drawings in the Wellcome Library, Lon-

don (Inv. 393461 ; pen and ink with brown wash over

black chalk,37 1× 285 mm), unattributed, but probably

also by Raffaello da Montelupo; this sheet, incidentally,

contains on its verso a sketch copy of the slave second

from the right in Michelangelo’smodellifor the tomb of

Julius II in Berlin (153 0 5recto/Corpus 55 ) and the Uffizi

( 608 Erecto/B 244 /Corpus 56 ). Montelupo was never

to become an accomplished anatomist, but no doubt

proximity to Michelangelo encouraged him to make the

attempt.

The series of leg studies display an accomplishment in

the rendering of form and an ease and fluency of exe-

cution uncommon in Raffaello’s work. It seems likely

that they were made after lost drawings by Michelan-

gelo in either pen or black chalk or both for one of the

seated dukes in the New Sacristy, but at a more advanced

stage of development than the model copied on the recto.

Relevant drawings by Michelangelo are found at Haar-

lem A 33 arecto/VT 58 /Corpus 218 ;black chalk, 202 ×

247 mm, and in Casa Buonarroti, 10 F/B 71 /Corpus 224 ;

pen and ink, 226 × 258 mm. Another rather rougher copy

byRaffaello da Montelupo (considered by some writers

to be an original) of a further lost page of leg studies by

Michelangelo is in the Uffizi, 622 E/B 205 /Corpus 223 ;

pen and ink, 210 × 268 mm. See also Cat. 78. Raffaello

may have recalled these leg studies when he designed the

urn-bearingignudiseated at the sides of the monument

of Baldassare Turini in the Turini Chapel in the Duomo

at Pescia.

The present sheet is about the same size as that on

which Raffaello copied Michelangelo’sInfant Bacchanal

(see Cat. 66 ) and the two may have been pages of the same

sketchbook. The sketches on the present sheet are also

closely related to those on the verso of a sheet in the

Louvre (Inv. 715 /J 55 ; pen and ink,36 7× 250 mm), whose

recto contains one of Raffaello’s most finished and elegant

drawings, a copy of Michelangelo’sVirgin and Childin the

New Sacristy, seen from the right side. The three sheets

shared the same history until 1838 , when King William

II of Holland purchased from Woodburn that now in the

Louvre.