The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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54 THE DRAWINGS OF MICHELANGELO AND HIS FOLLOWERS IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

From around15 2 0, and probably considerably earlier,

Michelangelo made drawings as presents for friends. As

already remarked, the Presentation Drawing was not a

new genre; at least one drawing by Leonardo dating from

the 1470 s, theHead of a Warriorin silver-point in the

British Museum, is explicable only as a virtuoso display

of technique, made for a patron or a friend, and Vasari

recounts that – probably shortly after15 0 0– Leonardo

made a now-lost drawing of theQuos Egofor his friend

Antonio Segni. It is likely that drawings of this type sprang

from highly finishedmodelli, and Verrocchio’s studio was

probably their crucible. Perhaps some of Michelangelo’s

more elaborate early pen drawings, if not necessarily cre-

ated as gifts, were givenaway, forthere is evidence for

early knowledge of some of them (Corpus 22 wasknown

to Raphael, whose lost sketch after it is known in a replica

in the Metropolitan Museum, 87. 12. 69 /BT 211 ). And it

may be that Michelangelo made self-sufficient drawings

in pen, as Bandinelli was to do. However, drawings cer-

tainly made by Michelangelo as gifts are either in black

or red chalk, and none are known either in the original

or in copies that can reasonably be dated before c.15 2 0.

But Michelangelo made a highly finishedmodelloin chalk

for at least one of the paintings by his friend Sebastiano

(Windsor Royal Collection, PW 451 ), and it may well

have been from drawings of this type that his Presenta-

tion Drawings proper developed.

It is not known how many Presentation Drawings

Michelangelo made, but they fall broadly into two types:

ideal, emblematic heads and figurative compositions, gen-

erally of allegorical or mythological subjects. It seems

to have been the former that he initially drew most. A

series of three “Ideal Heads” were made for his friend

Gherardo Perini in the early15 2 0s (Corpus 306 – 308 ),

and others survive whose original recipients are uniden-

tified (Cat. 31 , Corpus 321 ). Although Michelangelo may

have made them, no allegorical or mythological Presen-

tation Drawings survive that can certainly be dated before

c.153 0.In 1531 or 1532 ,however, Michelangelo became

deeply fond of the young Roman aristocrat Tommaso

de’Cavalieri and for him made a series of moralising

compositions in both red and black chalk, which rapidly

became famous (e.g., Corpus 338 and34 2). Further draw-

ings of this type survive from the same period (Cat. 35 ),

no doubt made for other friends. And some of the more

highly finished drawings of theResurrection, also made

byMichelangelo in the early153 0s, were probably also

intended as gifts for friends (Corpus 263 and 265 ).

There is some controversy over the technique of these

drawings. Michelangelo seems to have made them more

rapidly than one might suppose from their hyper-finished

appearance. In a note to Tommaso written on the ver-

sion of theFall of Phaetonin the British Museum (Corpus

34 0), he says that if Tommaso likes it, he will make a com-

plete version the next day. If, as is generally assumed, this

second version is the very highly finished representation

of the subject in the Royal Collection at Windsor, then

Michelangelo’s speed was phenomenal.

In making highly finished drawings, Michelangelo had

to strike a compromise between elaboration and liveli-

ness. Too heavy an application and the surface would go

dead; too light a touch and the effect of polished marble or

bronze, or even the sheen of flesh, would not be achieved.

In 1949 ,Wilde argued that these drawings were com-

posed by stippling, that Michelangelo had used a chalk

with a hard point and had built up the surface by a series

of touches, a very laborious system, approximating to

Seurat’s pointillism. This has been denied by other critics,

notably Rosand, who argue instead that Michelangelo in

fact used the chalk quite broadly, employing the “tooth”

of the paper to obtain textural variety. However, in no case

among surviving drawings does the support appear suffi-

ciently rough to obtain such luminescent variety, and the

matter remains unresolved. In these drawings, Michelan-

gelo certainly used many different types of handling and

techniques, from simple outline, to broader, broken line-

work, to areas that appear to be created by stumping, to

fine overlays of parallel lines to build up form, to some

stippling. It seems most likely indeed, that, although a

full programme was not employed, Michelangelo made

some use of stippling to obtain the effect of a surface cre-

ated, as it were, without signs of creation. And he may

have placed his paper against slightly roughened surfaces,

in order that their textural variety would come through:

like brass-rubbing. Interestingly, it was this very effect that

Seurat was to exploit.

After the mid-153 0s, so far as we know, Michelan-

gelo ceased to make Presentation Drawings of secular

subjects. All his later ones are religious, and all save the

Madonna del Silenzio(Corpus 388 ), of c.15 4 0,are made in

black chalk, including his last series, dating from the first

half of the15 4 0s, for Vittoria Colonna (Corpus 411 and

426 ).

To w a r d s155 0,healso made twocartonettiforAnnun-

ciationstobeexecuted by his friend Marcello Venusti

and, a few years later, one of theAgony in the Garden

(Corpus 393 , 399 , and 409 ). In elaboration and detail,

these differ little from the Presentation Drawings proper,

although some areas are left blank for Marcello to incor-

porate motifs of his own. When Marcello had finished

with them, Michelangelo gave two to his pupil and asso-

ciate Jacopo del Duca, later to be obtained and displayed