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THE DISPERSAL AND FORMATION OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE’S COLLECTION OF DRAWINGS 11in 1832 , mentions drawings – then in the possession of
Lawrence’s executors – made by Michelangelo for Sebas-
tiano’sRaising of Lazarus(National Gallery), that he had
previously seen in Wicar’s house in Rome; the drawings
in question are no doubt those now divided between the
British Museum and the Mus ́ee Bonnat.^82 Sadly, Passa-
vant provides no further information. Whether the run
of Michelangelos that Wicar sold to Woodburn in 1823
represented acquisitions made after 1800 , whether it com-
prised drawings that he had not lost to theft in 1799 ,or
whether it was a combination of both – the most likely
possibility – is not known. The question of how many
drawings by or attributed to Michelangelo Woodburn
acquired directly from Wicar is also addressed later.
As the passage quoted earlier from Robinson’s account
makes clear, it has generally been accepted that a good
number – if not all – of the Michelangelo drawings
in Lawrence’s collection with a provenance from Casa
Buonarroti and from Ottley had also come from Wicar
via his treacherous friends.^83 It must therefore be asked
how many drawings by Michelangelo were stolen from
Wicar in 1799 , and how many of them passed through
the hands of Ottley? To attempt to answer these questions,
it is necessary to say a few words about William Young
Ottley.
Ottley was in Italy from 1791 to 1799 , overlapping
with Wicar. As a comfortably-off young man with artistic
ambitions and a reputation as a radical, Ottley curiously
parallels the convinced and committed French republican.
Ottley had access to at least some of the same sources as
Wicar, and he too certainly acquired drawings, including
some by Michelangelo, from Bartolommeo Cavaceppi.
Ottley spent time in Florence, as well as Rome, and, in
principle, might have bought drawings by Michelangelo
if not directly from Filippo Buonarroti, at least from some
intermediary to whom Filippo had sold them. It is by no
means to be assumed, therefore, that all the Michelan-
gelo drawings that came into Ottley’s hands from Casa
Buonarroti had necessarily passed through Wicar’s. It may
be added that, naturally for a young English artist at this
moment, deeply under the influence of Fuseli, Ottley was
fascinated by Michelangelo and copied his work. Several
of Ottley’s copy drawings are signed and dated: One, now
in the Vatican, after Duke Giuliano, is inscribed “Drawn
and finished from the original Florence. Feb 21 , 1792 ”;
another, after a section of theLast Judgement, signed and
dated 1793 is inscribed “ab orig.”^84 Ottley would have
needed no incentive to pursue drawings by Michelan-
gelo. It is not fully certain that Ottley acquired all his
drawings in Italy – one writer claimed that he purchased
the ex-Casa Buonarroti Michelangelos only in Londonon his return – but it is probable that the bulk of what he
owned was obtained in Florence or Rome.^85
ForWicar’s losses in 1799 , theEtat ́ that he sent to Hum-
bert de Superville is a vital source and apparently reliable
about the drawings that had been stolen from him. Of the
thirty-nine items included in it – comprising both single
sheets and groups of drawings – Wicar specified thirty-
three groups of drawings by Raphael and a few by other
artists. Some of the Raphaels are described so precisely –
if briefly – that they can readily be identified, and it is
very clear that a proportion of these – at least twenty and
perhaps as many as thirty-six sheets^86 –was acquired by
Ottley as, indeed, he admitted. But in the present con-
text, that of Michelangelo, theEtat ́ is extremely puzzling.
By Michelangelo was specified only the book of architec-
tural sketches believed by Wicar to be autograph but now
known to be predominantly by Michelangelo’s associate
Raffaello da Montelupo.^87 This did not pass to Ottley and
was among the items re-possessed from Fedi by Wicar in
1824 .Itappears, therefore, that although stolen drawings
byRaphael, the artist Wicar seems to have valued above
all others, had entered Ottley’s possession, Wicar did not
believe – or was not aware – that Ottley had acquired
stolen drawings by Michelangelo.
Nevertheless, this conclusion is hard to reconcile with
other evidence. Although Wicar did not include in his
Etat ́ any Michelangelo drawings among those works that
had been stolen from him and that he believed Ottley
had acquired, Ottley did own a number of drawings by
Michelangelo that later cataloguers have stated were pre-
viously owned by Wicar. Thus, Woodburn’s 1836 cata-
logue lists two drawings with the provenance Wicar and
Ottley: nos. 77 (theDream of Human Life,nowin the
Prince’s Gate Collection) and 80 (Cat. 29 here). His184 2
prospectus and Robinson’s catalogue list both the latter
(the former had been sold to William II in 1839 ) and one
other drawing not exhibited in 1836 with the provenance
Wicar and Ottley (respectively nos. 4 and 72 ). Combin-
ing the information in the catalogues of 1836 and184 2,
one would therefore conclude that only three drawings
in total passed in some manner from Wicar to Ottley, and
that all other drawings for which Wicar’s ownership is
listed were acquired directly from Wicar by Woodburn
in 1823. This would modify the conclusion reached from
examination of theEtat ́ that no Michelangelo drawings
were among those stolen, but only to the extent that three
drawings by Michelangelo were purloined from Wicar
and passed to Ottley. It might be possible, in principle, to
accept that Wicar had simply forgotten about them when
he wrote to Humbert de Superville. It would, however,
be difficult to believe that had Wicar lost to theft the