The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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CATALOGUES 85–86 COPIES AFTER PAINTINGS 34 7

general uneven discolouration, and local staining in the

image area. The primary support is drummed by the four

edges to the backboard of the mount, so the verso is not

visible.

Discussion

This drawing was clearly made from a reduction of

Michelangelo’s figure, although it is equally clear that it

wasafairly large one, perhaps half the size of the orig-

inal. As all commentators have observed, the figure is

borne on a mobile chariot constructed of thin wooden

struts, too flimsy to support anything heavier than a

plaster.

The drawing provides valuable insight into the employ-

ment of reductions of Michelangelo’s figures as studio

props. There is much evidence for this practise in the

worshop of Tintoretto, although none of his or his

pupils’ surviving drawings after Michelangelo indicates

how the plaster figures that they copied were supported;

the present drawing makes it easy to understand how a

copyist could obtain many different views of theEvening

with minimal effort.

In the compiler’s view, the drawing has close links

with the Carracci circle, more especially the work of

Ludovico than either of his cousins. The form of the

left hand and the simplification of the fingers is charac-

teristic. As established by Loisel, 2000 , Ludovico seems

to have exploited the combination of black and red chalk

extensively in the early15 8 0s, following a stay in Florence

working in the circle of Federico Zuccaro – to whose

circle, incidentally, Cat. 85 is attributed by Rosenberg –

and the drawing might have been made by him around

that time. The Carracci were, of course, deeply inter-

ested in Venetian art and would have been well aware of

the Venetian route to Michelangelo through Tintoretto’s

obsessive copying of reductions of the New Sacristy

figures.

Ludovico Carracci, like his cousins, rejected the forced

Michelangelism prevalent in Bologna in the circle of

Passerotti, but, although critical of Michelangelo’s work,

the Carracci certainly were well aware of it and made

selective use of aspects of it, even during the15 8 0s, notably

in their fresco schemes in Palazzo Poggi and Palazzo

Magnani.

History

Sir Joshua Reynolds (L. 2364 ); Sir Thomas Lawrence

(L. 2445 ); Samuel Woodburn.

References

Woodburn,184 2,no. 87 (“Figure of a man-study from

life [sic]...sitting on a trestle.”). Woodburn,184 6,no. 6

(As184 2.). Robinson,187 0,no. 46 (Copy from Michel

Angelo, “most likely made from a plaster cast.”). Thode,

1913 ,p. 210 (Copy.). Parker, 1956 ,no. 355 (Latter part

of sixteenth century, copied from a plaster cast, a stu-

dio property placed on a wheeled support.). Joannides,

1996 - 8 ,p. 24 (Carracci school.). Rosenberg, 2000 ,NZ 21

(Italian, second half of the sixteenth century “aus dem

Umkreis Federico Zuccaros stammen durfte.”). ̈

CATALOGUE 86

The Whole Ceiling

184 6. 101 ;R. 36 ;P.II 356

Watermark: an indecipherable watermark under the

Flood.

Dimensions: 536 × 265 mm