The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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CATALOGUE 2 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 67

which the recto is generally connected with theBattle of

Cascina, although the compiler is rather inclined to relate

it to an unrealised project for theMartyrdom of the Ten

Thousand. The study of the right thigh and knee on the

versoofthe present sheet is also close in form to the right

thigh and knee of a figure on the verso of Louvre Inv. 714 ,

performing an action variously interpreted as digging or

impaling.

The studies of backs and shoulders on Cats. 1 and

2 are often thought to be for the marbleDavid, begun

byMichelangelo in September15 0 1 and perhaps com-

pleted by mid-summer 1503 (Hirst, 2000 ), and the forms

of that statue’s back – in which Michelangelo’s freedom

of manouevre was limited by a shallow block – are obvi-

ously similar. However, while a link remains plausible,

it was doubted by Parker, and the connection is insuf-

ficiently precise for it to be taken as certain. The raised

left arm on the verso of Cat. 2 , for example, cannot have

been intended for theDavid, and the pose of the figure

AonCat. 1 verso is, when analysed, not like that of the

David.Inthat drawing, the legs braced wide apart sug-

gest that Michelangelo arranged his model in a variant of

the pose of Donatello’sSaint Georgeand planned to dis-

tribute the figure’s weight evenly on both legs, not in the

contrapposto arrangement of the marbleDavidas carved.

Indeed, the drawing looks forward in certain respects to

an invention by Rosso of c.15 2 6, engraved by Caraglio

(The Illustrated Bartsch 28 , 38 ( 78 ), p. 115 )ofHercules, legs

astride, seen from the rear, one of a series of niched clas-

sical gods. Michelangelo’s drawing may also have been

in part inspired by the torso of one of theTy r annicides,

Aristogeiton and Harmodius, of which at least two ver-

sions were known in the Renaissance, both fragmentary

(see Bober and Rubinstein, 1986 ,pp. 162 – 3 ); Michelan-

gelo was not alone in looking at such a figure; a copy

after one of these attributed to the school of Raphael is

in the Ashmolean Museum, P.II, no. 622 ; pen and ink,

210 × 137 mm.

Reinforcement for the dating of these three sheets to

c.15 0 2is generally thought to be provided by the sketch

on Louvre Inv. 714 recto/J 4 /Corpus 19 , for a victorious

David, which is, with virtual certainty, connected with the

bronze commissioned from Michelangelo on 12 August

15 0 2for Pierre de Rohan, Marechal de Gi ́ ́e, cast by mid-

1503 , and whose chasing was completed by Benedetto da

Rovezzano in15 0 8. This figure was certainly drawn after

the sketch of a right arm and shoulder seen from the front,

and its presence could therefore be used to date the latter

somewhat earlier and to connect it with the marbleDavid,

begun in15 0 1.However, the sketch of the bronzeDavid

is so fully realised that, rather than a preliminaryconcetto,

it probably dates from a moment when Michelangelo was

refining details of his model, and, consequently, is datable

1503 .Ifso,while Michelangelo could, in theory, have

reused this side of the sheet some two years after he had

first drawn on it, this seems less likely than the alternative:

that the large study was not made for the marbleDavid

but for some other purpose that we cannot determine.

Several different heads are drawn on these two sheets.

The bearded head with aquiline nose, seen from below,

which occurs four times, once with head-gear, was, in the

past, often identified as a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci,

an identification that can be supported by the much-

discussed inscription,leardo. This could, in principle, refer

to Leonardo da Vinci – and such self-consciousness would

not be unknown from Michelangelo who inscribed his

leonardesque compositional drawing in the Louvre (Inv.

685 recto/J 16 /Corpus 26 , pen and ink over black chalk,

325 × 261 mm) –Chi direi mai che sia di mia mano– and

it does not conflict with what may be conjectured of

Leonardo’s appearance shortly after15 0 0,atabout 50.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe that Michelangelo

would have made a portrait drawing of his detested rival,

and it is very far from certain that the inscription refers to

the bearded man; it might, for instance, refer to the young

man at the right of Cat. 1 recto; or it might be entirely

unrelated: Scattered notes of names appear frequently on

sheets by Michelangelo, and in no other instance is it

probable that the subject of a drawing is named. If the

head is to be seen as a portrait, it seems more likely that

it was a friend or relation of Michelangelo’s. His father,

Ludovico, is an obvious candidate or, if the inscription

is taken to refer to the name of the person portrayed,

his elder brother, Leonardo. It has also been identified

as a self-portrait of Michelangelo, but this seems to the

compiler wholly implausible physiognomically.

In any case, the low angle from which these heads are

drawn would not be appropriate for an image intended

as a portrait, and it may be that Michelangelo was here

experimenting with facial types for one or other of the

twelve Apostles he was commisioned to carve for the

Duomo in15 0 4, which would, of course, have been

seen from below. It is worth recalling Goldscheider’s

interpretation of leardo as dappled, for Michelangelo

might well have wished to make note of a dappled beard,

perhaps with the intention of translating a pictorial effect

into sculpture.

The male head in left profile on Cat. 1 recto, loosely

executed in a virtuoso contour-mapping pen style, and

givenacaricatural cast, was probably made from life. It

was not made from the same model as the bearded heads,

and it depicts a younger man with more hair. It is difficult