The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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358 COPIES AFTER PAINTINGS CATALOGUES 91–92

(“One–awoman with a child on her knee – the orig-

inal design for one of the most celebrated groups in the

vault of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican – black chalk

on tinted paper, heightened. Engraved in Mr Ottley’s

Italian School of Design.”). Lawrence Inventory, 1830 ,

M. A. Buonaroti Case 3 , Drawer 3 [ 1830 - 57 ] (“A Woman

playing with a Child on her Knees, Black chalk.”). Wood-

burn, 1836 b,no. 68 (“[E]vidently from life, and which

he has made use of in the grand work of the Sistine

Chapel.”). The Literary Gazette, July 1836 (“[A]mong

the many productions in this gallery which rivetted our

attention.”). The Athenaeum, 16 July 1836 (“[F]or a com-

partment of the Sistine; so lofty that its merits cannot be

understood without this drawing; Cunego mistook dust

for the embellishment of a beard, so graved the woman

as an old man!”). Woodburn,184 2,no. 34 (As 1836 .).

Woodburn,184 6,no. 43 (As184 2.). Fisher,186 2,p. 3

(As Woodburn,184 2.). Fisher, 1865 ,p. 21 (As186 2.).

Robinson,187 0,no. 28 (Michel Angelo; “more altered

in execution than...[Cats. 17 and 89 ]...in the fresco

it is accompanied by a second seated figure in the back-

ground.”). Fisher,187 2, II, p. 19 (As186 2.). Black, 1875 ,

p. 214 ,no. 26. Gotti, 1875 , II, p. 221. Fisher, 187 9,

XX/p. 8 (Slight changes of phrasing.). Thode, 1913 ,p. 210

(Copy.). Parker, 1956 ,no. 361 (“[C]ertainly contemporary

and of some skill....Correspondence is fairly close, but it

omits the head to the left of the woman’s profile, modifies

her features...and emphasizes the outline curve of her

back.”). Nesselrath, 1990 ,no. 28 (The fresco is one of the

most detailed of the series, but the author of this design

“schizzato con mano sicura...e interressato prevalenta-`

mente all posa della figura che ha isolato.”).

CATALOGUE 92

TheIgnudoLeft AboveEsaias

1976. 254 ; Macandrew A 23

Dimensions: 295 × 202 mm

Medium

Brush and brown wash heightened with white, on mauv-

ish prepared paper.

Condition

The sheet has severe tears in the bottom left corner and

one at the top right corner. There are surface abrasions

overall, especially to the crests of cockling. There are stains

in the bottom left and right corners and near the tear. The

lead white heightening has begun to tarnish.

Inscription

Partly cancelled, lower right:Rymsdyck’s Museum

Discussion

Apoor copy of thisignudo,probably made after an

engraving.

History

Rijmsdijk (L. 2167 ), inscription Rymsdyck on verso;

‘C’ (L. 474 ), identified conjecturally by Brooke, 1998 –

9 ,asthe stamp of the Comte de Caylus, a view

contested by Turner, 2001 ,who suggests that it may

rather be a JG in ligature and that the collector was

either an Englishman or resident in England; uniden-

tified eighteenth- or nineteenth-century sale, Lot 865 ,

in red ink. Finch bequest to the Taylorian Institu-

tion in 1830 , transferred to the Ashmolean Museum in

1976.

References

Macandrew, 1980 ,A 23 (Old but clumsy and faded.).