P 1 : KsF
0521551335 c 04 -p 5 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 11 : 34
CATALOGUE 83 COPIES OF SCULPTURES 343Inscriptions
Recto:In pencil? upper centre: 23 .Inpen and ink at right
lower corner:Thornhill fecitand, at lower centre:sec d side.Ve r so: In pencil (in the same hand?);From Mich Angelo
and, in pen and ink:M.Discussion
Blayney Brown, cataloguing this sheet as by Sir James
Thornhill?, wrote that it “presents intriguing problems
of authorship, both because Thornhill himself was never
in Italy and because recto and verso seem neither to have
been drawn by the same hand nor at the same date; nor
is it at all certain that the inscription:Thornhill fecitis
bythe artist himself. Nevertheless the old ascription of
the recto to Thornhill may be at least partly correct.
Thornhill could have studied theNightfrom one of the
smallmodelliin circulation in his day, or retouched another
artist’s sketch in emulation of the practice of Rubens
whose work he collected....Athird possibility is that
he worked from a complete drawing of theNightsuch
as the old and fine copy in the Ashmolean in which the
right leg is also omitted (Cat. 84 ). Rubens’ study ofNight
(Frits Lugt Collection in the Fondation Custodia, Paris
Inv. 5251 ;black chalk, pen and ink with body colour,36 0× 495 mm) was in England in Thornhill’s day and
provides tempting parallels in its use of yellowish wash in
the figure, but as it includes significant variations from
the Michelangelo type, could not have served directly as
a model for Thornhill....The study on theverso...is
surely not by Thornhill, but by a somewhat earlier hand,
probably Italian.”
The contrast between the two sides of the sheet is
such that it was reasonable for Blayney Brown to con-
sider recto and verso to be by different hands, but to
the compiler between drawings so diverse in type and
technique no legitimate comparison appears possible and
he would be inclined to think that both were made by
the same draughtsman, employing very different styles for
very different purposes. It seems to the compiler improb-
able that the recto – the only side for which Blayney
Brown tentatively retains Thornhill’s name – is by him,
and it is improbable that Thornhill would ever have
been connected with it, in the absence of the inscrip-
tion. It compares in no particular with any other draw-
ing by or ascribed to Thornhill known to the compiler,
and he would explain the inscription as a misattribu-
tion by some later owner, perhaps mistaking a sheet
with a provenance from Thornhill’s estate for one by
him.