The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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200 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 38

subordinate, and it might more legitimately be seen as

a modified single-figure design.

Va r ious suggestions have been advanced as to the pur-

pose of these drawings and others representing the Resur-

rection. Popp suggested that multi-figures 1 and 2 were

alternative schemes for a fresco to be executed in the

lunette above the Magnifici Tomb in the New Sacristy;

de Tolnay and Hartt agreed with this view of some of

the drawings but detached others. Hartt, 1971 (entirely

improbably) considered multi-figure 3 to be for a relief

for the Julius Tomb in 1516 , whereas de Tolnay thought it

was for an (equally improbable) altarpiece for the Sistine

Chapel of c. 1534. Hirst, in 1961 and subsequently, sug-

gested that Michelangelo made all these drawings to assist

his friend Sebastiano with his altarpiece of theResurrection

for the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria della Pace. First con-

tracted for in15 2 0, the commission was renewed in153 0,

and Sebastiano might well have requested Michelangelo’s

aid then, or some time thereafter, when Michelangelo

wasinRome, so that any such request would have left no

epistolary trace.

Given the diversities of format and illumination among

them, it seems to the compiler improbable that the two (or

three) multi-figure compositions can have been intended

for the same project. In his view, the design seen in multi-

figure 1 can be separated from the others, and for this he

finds most plausible the explanation of Gamba – generally

dismissed – that it was made in preparation for a fresco

of theResurrectionto be executed on the entrance wall

of the Sistine chapel, where the fresco of that subject by

Michelangelo’s master, Ghirlandaio, had been irrepara-

bly damaged in a fall of masonry on Christmas Eve 1522.

Subject, lighting-direction, and proportions are appro-

priate for the location and both the fresco that had to be

replaced and the fresco that finally replaced it are multi-

figure scenes.

Most of the other suggestions do not hold water. There

is no evidence that a relief of theResurrectionwas planned

for the front face of the Julius Tomb whose iconogra-

phy, thoughout all its versions, is primarily Marian. The

assumption that aResurrectionmight have been planned

as an altarpiece for the Sistine Chapel is based on the

misinterpretation of a letter of 2 March 1534 referring to

therisurezzione(the general resurrection of the dead) or

theLast Judgement, whose preparation was by then well

underway. The question of what subjects were planned

for the lunettes in the New Sacristy remains unresolved,

butitiscertain that they were to be sculpted, and the

only design that might fit into a lunette (but not readily)

is hardly appropriate for execution in sculpture. The most

reasonable hypothesis is that of Hirst, who connected the

drawings with the commission to Sebastiano to paint a

Resurrectionas the altarpiece of the Chigi Chapel in Santa

Maria della Pace. However, once again, it is improbable

that all theResurrectiondrawings can have been made for

this scheme since the field available for the altarpiece in

Santa Maria della Pace was relatively small. Nevertheless,

Sebastiano was to receive 1 , 200 ducats for this commis-

sion, only 300 less than for the very large altarpiece in

the second Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo, also

commissioned from him, so that although the sizes of the

altarpiece cannot have been comparable, it is likely that

the Pace painting was to be of some complexity.

The figures frescoed above the altar by Raphael c.151 2

are lit from the right, and the presumption is that the

altarpiece would also be (this, incidentally, was also the

planned direction of illumination in the Popolo Chapel).

The lighting of 2 , therefore, fits the Pace Chapel, but the

composition does not seem particularly appropriate to

the presumed shape of the altarpiece. When this drawing

wasexecuted as a painting by Marcello Venusti (Cam-

bridge, Massachusetts, Fogg Art Museum; oil on panel,

600 × 400 mm), he greatly increased the distance between

Christ and the guards. In composition, the most appro-

priate design for the Pace would be 3 ,but that is lit from

the left.

The Pace altarpiece also provides the most plausible

purpose for the single-figure series. There are four highly

worked variants of the single figure of Christ emerging

from the tomb:

Single-figure 1 .The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle,

PW 428 recto/ Corpus 265 ;black chalk,37 2× 220

mm.

Single-figure 2 .British Museum, W 54 recto/Corpus 263 ;

black chalk, 414 × 274 mm.

Single-figure 3. Casa Buonarroti CB 65 Fverso/B 142 /

Corpus34 7;black chalk, 420 × 297 mm; this, though

somewhat more loosely handled than the others,

counts among them.

Single-figure 4 .Alost drawing known in two copies:

a. Rotterdam, Boymans Museum I. 20 (Formerly

Dezallier D’Argenville and Sir Thomas Lawrence

[ 1836 – 56 ]; black chalk, 357 × 171 mm; attributed by

Wilde to Giulio Clovio.

b. Florence, Uffizi 1450 S; black chalk, 374 × 256 mm;

as Alessandro Allori. In support of the Pace location

is that all these figures are lit from the right.

In addition to the present drawing, there survive

six other rough sketches on five sheets all of which

concentrate on the single figure of Christ:

Sketch 1. Casa Buonarroti CB 61 Frecto/B 137 /Corpus

261 ;black chalk,38 0× 252 mm.