P 1 : JZP
0521551335 c 06 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 11 : 50
36 8 COPIES AFTER PAINTINGS CATALOGUE 101Condition
The sheet is probably lined. There are minor edge tears,
repaired, with ingrained dirt. The sheet has accretions,
local staining, and some foxing.Discussion
Even were the provenance of this drawing from Casa
Buonarroti correct – which it probably is not because
there is no evidence that Moritz von Fries acquired ex-
Buonarroti drawings – it need not signify Michelangelo’s
authorship because several drawings still in that collec-
tion are obvious copies after his works, some of them
made after his death, and other later copies were cer-
tainly included in the mass dispersal of the late eighteenth
century. Although the present drawing was tentatively
accepted by de Tolnay in 1978 , all other modern scholars
have judged it to be a copy after the death’s head in the
lower centre of Michelangelo’s fresco, and this view seems
to the compiler to be correct. The differences noted by
de Tolnay from the figure as painted seem to the com-
piler not to indicate a preparatory study but rather to
reveal the copyist’s own personality. Although no more
than a fragment, the drawing is clearly of considerable
accomplishment, precise and accurate in its delineation
and convincing, if a little bland, in its establishment of
volumes. The cutting of the drawing is clearly extreme,butitwould seem less so could it be shown to have been
excised from a sheet that contained a series of head studies
or that copied only single elements from the fresco.
The present drawing was attributed to Giulio Clovio
by Perrig, 1999 ,but to the compiler it lacks Clovio’s neat-
ness and thinness. It seems more likely to be by Alessandro
Allori, who studied closely Michelangelo’sLast Judgement
during his sojourn in Rome in the later155 0s; in15 6 0,
on his return to Florence, Alessandro painted an abbrevi-
ated and reduced variant of it in the Montauto Chapel in
Santissima Annunziata. A number of black chalk copies of
different figures in theLast Judgementmade by Alessandro
survive – several of them in the Louvre – and the present
drawing is compatible with them. The soft but precise
handling is typical, as is the comparative lack of plas-
tic force. Personal contact between Allori and Michelan-
gelo is indicated by a letter of thanks on Allori’s behalf
from Benedetto Varchi to Michelangelo dated 12 Febru-
ary15 6 0, and Michelangelo seems to have been help-
ful to the young man who, apparently “non si sazia di
predicare le singularissime virtueu` nica cortesia” of the
master. Alessandro in appreciation, might well have pre-
sented Michelangelo with drawings, including a copy or
copies after parts of his work. It does in any case seem
certain that the young Alessandro knew at least some of
Michelangelo’s studies for the Last Judgementfor two
studies by him in Lille (Brejon de Lavergnee, nos. ́ 4 ,
5 ; both in black chalk, respectively, 402 × 241 mm and
410 × 265 mm) for theCleansing of the Templein the
Montauto chapel were long attributed to Michelangelo
himself, before they were identified as Allori’s by
Franc ̧oise Viatte (unpublished thesis, 1963 ), and these can
hardly have been made without knowledge not merely of
Michelangelo’s fresco but of some of his drawings for it.
Thus, the qualities intuited by de Tolnay in the present
fragment may register the direct impression upon Allori
of Michelangelo’s own drawings.History
Casa Buonarroti? (this is probably incorrect); Graf Moritz
von Fr ies (L. 2903 ); Samuel Woodburn; Sir Thomas
Lawrence (no stamp); Samuel Woodburn.References
Woodburn,184 2,no. 35 (“Five very fine studies on one
Mount, one of which is the Death’s Head in theLast
Judgement”; this drawing had been mounted together with
[Cats. 51 – 52 ], which had been together at least since
1804 and probably earlier, and [Cat. 73 ].). Woodburn,
184 6,no. 40 (As184 2.). Fisher,186 2,p. 3 , pl. 4 (Pen,