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0521551335 c 04 -p 5 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 11 : 34
34 0 COPIES OF SCULPTURES CATALOGUE 81statue was replicated at least ten times in bronze reduc-
tions and was copied, directly and indirectly, in numer-
ous drawings well before153 0.The first precisely datable
visual reference to it is found in theLamentation over the
Dead Christ,the predella of the altarpiece of Saints Cosmas
and Damian, executed by Fernando Llanos and Fernando
Yanez between July and December ̃ 15 0 6for the Cathe-
dral of Valencia. In this panel, Michelangelo’s figure, seen
from the back, stands at the left edge. Llanos depicted the
figure again c.15 2 0,this time in frontal view, in hisAdora-
tion of the Shepherdsin the Museo Diocesano, Murcia. The
recto drawing was inventoried in 1830 as after Michelan-
gelo’s statue, perhaps on the basis of an annotation on a
now-lost mount, and this reference, first published only
in 1997 ,provides further – and independent – support for
the compiler’s hypothesis. It also raises the possibility that
Ottley, the earliest recorded owner, acquired the sheet,
directly or indirectly, from a French source because only
aFrench owner is likely to have been able to make such
alinking with any confidence.
It is unclear how the present sheet acquired the attri-
bution to Raphael that it already held in Lawrence’s
collection, and with whose name it has subsequently
been associated. Although it is not at all unlikely that
Raphael copied Michelangelo’s figure during his Floren-
tine sojourn, the drawings on this sheet bear little relation
to his pen style. The watermark suggests a date early in
the cinquecento, and the style seems plausibly Florentine
of the second or third decade. There are links with the
pen-work of Bandinelli – who also knew this figure and
employed it seen from a different angle in a drawing in
the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (PW 75 ;pen and
ink, 272 × 200 mm) – but the draughtsmanship of the
present drawing seems livelier than Bandinelli’s in contour
and less formulaic in hatching. Some similarity may also
be seen with Michelangelo’s own more energetic broad
pen style as practised in the period around15 2 0–wit-
ness the doubled contours – but the work of the present
draughtsman is much less dynamic than that of Michelan-
gelo in modelling and line-work.
There is, of course, no good reason why a copy of
Michelangelo’s statue, or of one of the reductions of it,
should have been made by an artist in Michelangelo’s
orbit, but the motifs of some of the other drawings on
this sheet do suggest that the draughtsman had a close rela-
tion to the master. The ornament or trophy on the recto,
perhaps a fire dog that incorporates aputtoplaying with
ahelmet, is consonant with Michelangelo’s deployment
ofputti,asinhis so-calledAllegory of Prudence,adrawing
now known only in copies (such as that by Raffaello da
Montelupo in the British Museum, W 89 ;pen and ink,
261 ×35 9mm) and with his decorative vocabulary, suchas the heavy candelabra sculpted for the altar and planned
for the attics of the ducal tombs in the New Sacristy.
The drawings on the verso suggest even more strongly
aclose relation with Michelangelo. The left leg placed on
the left of the page, seen frontally, could well be copied
from a lost Michelangelo drawing; although no precise
model is known, it is obviously closely comparable to,
indeed might be thought to stand between, the sketchy
pen drawing of a left leg on BM W 5 verso/Corpus
46 (pen and ink over black chalk, 315 × 278 mm), and
the more elaborate pen drawing of a left leg on the
versoofBerlin Inv. 153 0 5/Corpus 55 (pen and ink,
343 × 525 mm). This leg is probably not another view of
the form studied on the right side of the sheet, the lower
part of a torso and left leg seen in left profile. Similarly,
this study, although it might at first sight be interpreted as
aprofile view, on a slightly larger scale, of the main figure
on this face of the sheet, seems to show the leg at a differ-
ent angle and with a different relation to the torso. It, too,
could well derive from a lost drawing by Michelangelo:
It is immediately reminiscent of a study such as that on
the left of the sheet of drawings for theBattle of Cascina
in the Albertina (BK 123 recto/Corpus 53 ;pen and ink
corrected in black chalk, 266 × 194 mm).
At the upper left, the sketch of a bearded head is very
similar to that ofMosesin Michelangelo’s famous statue,
underway from c. 1513 :itmay,indeed, be after a graphic or
plastic model for it. TheMoseswasnot publicly displayed
until the mid-15 4 0s, and until then it was known only to
alimited number of Michelangelo’s associates.
The main drawing on the verso, and the first to be
executed, is a rear view of the so-calledGnudo della Paura,
among the most famous figures surviving from classical
antiquity, and one which, from the early quattrocento,
wasfrequently copied and alluded to both by painters
and sculptors, especially in Florence. It would come as
no surprise could it be shown that Michelangelo owned
aplaster cast of this figure.
On the basis of the fact that the Este collection in
Ferrara contained small bronzes of both theHerculesand
theGnudo,Radcliffe suggested (in 1979 – 80 )thatthe
drawing was made in that collection, but nothing about
the drawing style indicates Ferrara, and this hypothesis,
which Radcliffe subsequently withdrew, also leaves unex-
plained the other drawings on the sheet.
If the drawings were made by a Florentine artist close
to Michelangelo in the period c. 1515 – 25 ,who was he?
The most obvious candidate would be Michelangelo’s
pupil and assistant, Pietro Urbano, whom Vasari describes
as talented. While the present sheet does not bear any
close relation to drawings that might possibly be given
to him, such as two in Paris (Louvre, Inv. 694 /J 49 and