The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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0521551331 c 01 -p 3 a CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 18

CATALOGUE 56 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 271

F. A loose circle about 90 mm in diameter whose purpose

is conjectural. A and C are drawn over this.

Drawn with the top edge as base.

G.A large double door, panelled, enframed, surmounted

bya balustrade above which is a flat corniced window

with rusticated framing pilasters.

Discussion

Recto

This drawing and Cat. 55 have generally been considered

together. They share a history, are almost the same size,

and are very similar in technique. Like that, this drawing

has often been connected with the Palazzo Farnese and

dated c.155 0, although no door that resembles this one

exists in that building, and it is not to be excluded that it

was made in preparation for another architectural project

of the same period or, conceivably, simply for a detail in

aproject by another architect.

The design clearly looks back to Michelangelo’s project

for the exterior portal of the reading room of the Lau-

rentian Library in which a rectangular tablet breaks

into the triangular pediment that surmounts the door.

In Michelangelo’smodellofor this door (CB 98 A/B 255 /

Corpus55 0; pen and ink with brush and wash,34 6× 239

mm), which was somewhat simplified in execution, two