The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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108 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 13

H.An elderly man seated in left profile within a lunette,

his legs crossed, a bundle and a wide-brimmed hat slung

over his back, his right forearm tried in two positions,

bent across his lap and supporting his head.

Hirst 1986 a suggests that this figure was further developed in

Cat. 10 recto D, which is in reverse; although there are similar-

ities between the figures, a direct linking seems doubtful to the

compiler.

I. A partly draped seated man seen from the front, turning

round to his right and reaching upwards.

This is perhaps a first idea, in reverse, for the figure at the

left-hand side of the destroyedAbraam-Isaac-Iacob-Iudaslunette,

developed further, reversed and stiffened in Cat. 16 recto.

Avery similar pose, reversed, was employed by Raphael

for the Adam in theFallof the vault of the Stanza della

Segnatura.

J. A seated woman in left profile, bending down towards

the base of a winding spool?, accompanied by an appar-

ently mature man and two children.

The curve to the right is the window. This drawing seems to

have been the inspiration for the woman on the right-hand

side of theIesse-David-Salmonlunette. However, her pose is not

identical, and there she only works a spindle and is unaccom-

panied by children. Michelangelo may have felt that the pose

sketched here was too close to that in Cat. 10 versoCtobe

pursued.

Verso

A.Aseated figure seen frontally, his/her arms folded

across the torso, looking down to his/her right; the object

at the left side may be a cradle.

Aspects of the pose resemble that of the left-hand figure in the

Aminadablunette, but there is no close correspondence, and the

figure is probably female. Perhaps pursued in Cat. 16 verso B.

B.Areclining figure seen from half left, with his/her left

knee raised and right leg hanging down, resting on the

left arm and looking out to his/her left.

It is conjectural for what purpose this figure was intended: The

obvious answer would be that it was drawn for one of the bronze

nudes in the interstices of the architecture, but this pose was not

used in any of them: It was recalled over a decade later in the

Dawnin the New Sacristy.