The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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0521551331 c 01 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 10 , 2007 22 : 22

CATALOGUE 1 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 59

CATALOGUE 1

Recto: The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne

Ve r so: Figure Studies

184 6. 37 ;R. 22 ;P.II 291 ; Corpus 17

Dimensions: 257 × 175 mm

Watermark: Robinson Appendix 19 a. Roberts Cross C.

The single use of this paper in Michelangelo’s work. Not

recorded in Briquet.

Medium

Pen and iron gall ink.

Condition

There is a major pressed-out crease with ingrained dirt

running diagonally across the lower right corner. There

are major fractures where the ink has burned through

further to repaired areas and old museum repairs with in-

drawing. Other historic repairs are at the edges, where

there is thinning and a repaired hole. There is local stain-

ing, widespread discolouration, and show-through of the

ink on both the recto and the verso.

Inscriptions

Recto: Lower centre, in pen and ink:di Michel Angelo

(di) Buona Rotiin a sixteenth-century? hand; below this,

inverted, in black chalk, 32 ;atlowerright, in black

chalk, 7.

Ve r so: With the top edge as the base, obliquely at upper

left, cut by the edge of the sheet,no.

Lower centre: Robinson’s numbering in graphite: 22

Description

Recto

The Virgin, Child, and Saint Anne seated; a horizontal

pen-line runs across the full width of the sheet, some

7 – 9 mm above its lower edge.

Verso

A.Rear view of a standing youthful male, at three-

quarter length. He looks to his left, his left arm is held

away from hisbody, his right forearm is bent forward, and

his legs are braced apart.

B.Lower left corner, probably in the artist’s hand:...ro

amore.

C.Immediately to the right of B:lestare.

With the right edge as base

D. Outline of a female head facing right.

E.Another, similar head, further simplified.

F. A man’s head, in left profile.

It is uncertain whether D, E, and F should be read as separate

studies or as three people engaged in discussion: conceivably a

mother and child with a male interlocutor.

G.The head of a middle-aged, bearded man, turned to

his right, seen in front three-quarter view.

H.The head, torso, and part of the upper thighs of a

seated youthful male, with long hair, facing left.

I. Below G: leardo.

Discussion

Recto

The group of the Virgin, Child, and Saint Anne on the

recto is obviously inspired, as all critics have emphasised,

byLeonardo’s famous experiments with closely integrated

three- and four-figure Holy Family groups, one of which

was displayed to the public in cartoon form at Santis-

sima Annunziata in April15 0 1. But it has been noted that

the present drawing is close in arrangement to Leonardo’s

National Gallery cartoon of theVirgin and Child with Saint

Anne and Saint John the Baptist(NG 6337 ; charcoal, black

and white chalk, 1415 × 1046 mm) – which is not identical

with that shown in15 0 1and whose date is disputed – and

closer still to Leonardo’s damaged drawing in the Louvre

(Inv. RF 460 ; pen and ink over black chalk, 120 × 100 mm)

and to another fragment of a sheet bearing a study for the

same group (Venice, Accademia, Inv. 230 ; pen and ink

over black chalk, 122 × 100 mm). No doubt there was

awareness in Florentine artistic circles of more variants of

the subject by Leonardo than are recorded. Wasserman

( 1969 ) and Nathan ( 1992 )have also argued that the

pose of the Virgin is influenced by one of Leonardo’s

designs for a kneelingLeda: Indeed, it is plausible that

Michelangelo absorbed ideas from a range of Leonardo’s

work before fusing them with his own interests to pro-

duce the present composition. The compiler is scepti-

cal of Nathan’s suggestion that the drawing was at first

intended to represent aLedawith one of her children, but

Michelangelo might have considered treating that subject

at this period: a group sketched on a sheet in the Uffizi

( 18737 recto/B 3 /Corpus 44 ;black chalk, pen and ink,

242 × 211 mm) could as well representLeda and the Swan

as – its usual identification –The Abduction of Ganymede.

Whatever its debts to Leonardo, Michelangelo’s group

is more sculptural and block-like in conception than any

known work by his great rival, and he also experimented

with other such groups over several years: two drawings