The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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318 STUDIO DRAWINGS AND DRAWINGS OF UNDETERMINED STATUS CATALOGUE 73

Verso

A.A larger version of B on the recto.

B.In pen and ink: a column with Corinthian capital.

Discussion

Both sides of this sheet, with the possible exception of C

on the recto, are no doubt by Antonio Mini as the old

inscription indicates.

The outline drawing of a column on the verso,

although not penned with Michelangelo’s precision, is

similar to studies by him for architectural projects. The

vertical lines are too exact to have been drawn free-hand,

and they were no doubt made with the aid of a curve.

It does not appear to be a practice drawing, intended

to familiarise Mini with classical architectural forms, and

because, as far as we are aware, Mini was not indepen-

dently active as an architect, it seems most probable that

this drawing was made as part of the preparation for a

project by Michelangelo. Perhaps Michelangelo felt that

a task of this kind could safely be delegated. Alternatively,

it might be a copy of a lost drawing by Michelangelo,

with Mini trying out his hand at an architectural form.

It is uncertain to what project the column may be

related, but it could have been the reliquary tribune of San

Lorenzo, on which Michelangelo began to work in late

1531 , shortly before Mini undertook his ill-fated voyage to

France. The columns that support the reliquary tribune

are – uniquely in this period of Michelangelo’s work –

Corinthian, as in the drawing, and the proportions too

seem appropriate.

The view ofDayfrom the back is unlikely to have

been drawn from the statue itself; as Wilde pointed out,

it was probably made from a small model. But because the

Day(and theNight) seems to have been re-designed in late

15 2 4when the marbles that Michelangelo had planned for

these figures failed to materialise, and because the present

drawing corresponds closely – although not exactly – with

the figure’s new state, 27 October15 2 4– when Michelan-

gelo had marbles transferred to San Lorenzo from his own

stock in his Via Mozza workshop (Ricordo CXVIII) –

is a secureterminus post quem.However, the competence

of the drawing is greater than Mini would have seemed

capable of even in late15 2 4, and it too was probably made

a little later, perhaps in15 2 5or15 2 6.Itmaybe that the

model of theDaywas one of the many that Michelangelo

gave to his pupil to assist him in his career in France.

The smaller drawing of the “Archer,” or fleeing fig-

ure, on the recto and its enlargement on the verso can-

not be connected securely with any project by Michelan-

gelo, and the purpose of this figure remains conjectural.

The pose does not seem to the compiler securely that

of an archer, but if this is the correct identification, the

drawings might have been made in connection with a

Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, although none such is known

either by Michelangelo or by Mini. If fleeing, he might

be a guard in aResurrection,asubject treated frequently

byMichelangelo in the early153 0s. There are also some

similarities of pose with figures in an active composition

sketched by Mini on a sheet in Florence (CB 37 F/B 170 ;

red chalk, 203 × 248 mm), which seems to be a variant

(perhaps an independent one) of aBrazen Serpentdesign

byMichelangelo (see Cat. 78 ). They are also very simi-

lar to those on a double-sided sheet of red chalk draw-

ing ( 195 × 86 mm, clearly cut down from a larger sheet),

which appeared in the N. Rauch sale, Geneva, 13 – 15 June

1960 , lot 261 (the recto alone illustrated) as by Michelan-

gelo, with a provenance from the collections of Prince

Argoutinsky-Dolgorougoff and H. de Marignane (p`ere);