The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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122 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 18

The difference in precision and definition between

this and the Metropolitan study forLibica exemplifies

Michelangelo’s extreme sensitivity to depth of field in his

paintings, establishing even at the stage of the preparatory

drawing the different levels of definition that he intended

to incorporate in the fresco.

The pen studies of sixprigioniand, at a different angle,

of a richly decorated cornice were certainly placed on

the page after the red chalk drawings had been made.

They illustrate Michelangelo’s habit of crowding his pages

and making new, smaller, drawings, often in a differ-

ent medium, around a pre-existing larger central one.

Perhaps he was stimulated by the constraint of adjusting

his new drawings to an apparent obstacle. Furthermore,

Michelangelo frequently planned more than one project

in more than one medium on the same page: Thus, here

are found studies for painting, sculpture, and architecture.

Even though the sketches ofprigioniare clearly prepara-

tory for those Michelangelo planned to carve for the

Tomb of Julius II, to the compiler they do not appear

to be preliminaryconcettigenerated on the page. Even

adraughtsman of Michelangelo’s genius could hardly be

expected to devise half-a-dozen nude figures in compli-

cated poses and get them all right at the first attempt.

It seems most likely that these drawings, which display

mimimalpentimenti,areworked up versions of less tidy

sketches, perhaps intended to provide patterns for trans-

fer. The transfer might be to an autographmodello,such as