P 1 : JZP
0521551335 c 02 -p 4 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 54
306 COPIES OF SURVIVING DRAWINGS CATALOGUE 67Condition
The sheet is extensively damaged and restored, and lined.
There are toned infills, major tear repairs, minor edge
infills, extensive abrasions, and some local staining. There
is a major horizontal score line and other small indenta-
tions at the upper edge. The primary support is drummed
bythe four edges to the backboard of the mount, so the
versoisnot visible.Discussion
A same-size copy, somewhat trimmed, of Michelangelo’s
highly finished drawing presented to Vittoria Colonna,
now in the British Museum (W 67 /Corpus 411 ;black
chalk,37 0× 270 mm). Michelangelo’s preparation of the
drawing is referred to in several undated letters: In the
opinion of Perrig, 1997 (pp. 133 – 5 ), these suggest that it
was only at Vittoria’s prompting, and with some reluc-
tance, that he added the lamenting angels, at either side
of the cross, which she found very beautiful; however,
this interpretation is questionable. The drawing was prob-
ably made not long after15 4 0. During her lifetime,
Vittoria presumably permitted Michelangelo’s drawing
to be copied in preparation for engraving and no doubt
allowed serious artists access to it. It is not known what
happened to the original after Vittoria’s death in15 4 7, and
whether or not it remained accessible is conjectural. Of
the drawn copies known to the compiler, most seem plau-
sibly to be datable within the15 4 0s. Michelangelo’s inven-
tions were very quickly seized upon both by artists and
bysophisticated patrons. Drawings after theLast Judgement
were commissioned and sent by Nini Sernini in Rome
both to Giulio Romano and to Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga
in Mantua within a year of the fresco’s completion; more
significant in the present context, copies of the three (or
three of the) drawings made by Michelangelo for Vittoria
Colonna, including theChrist on the Cross,were available
in Mantua by the end of the15 4 0s. In the case of theChrist
on the Cross, Cardinal Ercole would have been informed
about the drawing very early; one of Vittoria Colonna’s
undated letters to Michelangelo (Carteggio, IV, p. 101 )
states that she wished to show it, even if unfinished, to the
“gentiluomini del Reverendissimo Cardinale di Mantua.”
Cardinale Ercole probably had all three of Michelangelo’s
drawings for Vittoria Colonna reproduced in paintings
(see Brown, 1991 ).
There are also many painted versions of Michelangelo’s
design, most of them with around the same dimensions
as the drawing. Some of these were executed within a
few years of the original, including several by Michelan-
gelo’s prot ́ege Marcello Venusti. An indication of the ́significance of this design to Michelangelo and to his
immediate circle is that around the mid-155 0s, he returned
to it, adding the Virgin and Saint John, for whom his
drawings survive in the Louvre (Inv. 720 /J 39 /Corpus 412
and Inv. 698 /J 40 /Corpus 413 ; both black chalk, respec-
tively 230 × 110 mm and 250 × 82 mm). This addition
wasnodoubt made at the request of his servant and
friend Francesco d’Amadore, called Urbino, for whom
the expanded design was executed as a painting by Mar-
cello Venusti (see Cat. 50 ). Venusti would have made a
preparatorycartonettofor the painting, in which theChrist
on the Crossfor Vittoria Colonna and the two figures in
the Louvre were integrated.
The present copy, which is of good quality, is prob-
ably by Giulio Clovio, an attribution already proposed
in the Lawrence inventory. It seems to the compiler to
show Clovio’s deliberate and slightly uncertain handling
and, in the mourning angel, his characteristic facial types.
However, it must be admitted that here Giulio is more
successful than usual in establishing the volumes and plas-
ticity of the forms.
The present drawing is probably that owned by William
Young Ottley, and described in hisItalian Schools of Design
on p. 34 as a “highly wrought drawing of Christ in Agony
on the Cross, in his own Collection, formerly belonging
to the King of Naples” and subsequently offered in his sale
of 1814. Ottley seems to have believed that he possessed
Michelangelo’s original, but he is not included among
the owners of the British Museum original by Samuel
Woodburn in the 1836 catalogue, no. 22 : These are listed
as the King of Naples and Monsieur Brunet. There seems
to be no solid information about the partial dispersal of
the collections of the King of Naples, although it is cer-
tain, from remarks by Bottari in 1760 ,that at least some
drawings had by that date passed out of the collection:
He specifically mentions that Michelangelo’sEpifaniacar-
toon, now in the British Museum (W 75 /Corpus38 9;
black chalk, 2327 × 1656 mm) was owned by Cardinal
Valenti, in whose family’s collection it remained until
the Valenti sale of 1809 .Itishighly unlikely that Brunet
acquired Michelangelo’s original in Italy. It was no doubt
purchased by him at the sale of the collection of the
painter and dealer Julien de Parme in Paris on 21 – 22
February 1794 ,inwhich it appeared as lot 11 , “Un Christ
en Croix: deux Anges sont aux deux cotˆes, & au bas ́
est une tete de mort, dessinˆ ee come le pr ́ ecedent” (i.e., ́
“precieusement”). (This sale catalogue, which survives ́
in a single copy, was unknown to scholars before it was
published by P. Rosenberg, 1999 – 2000 ,pp. 26 – 31 .) Of
course, it could be argued that the drawing owned by