The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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320 STUDIO DRAWINGS AND DRAWINGS OF UNDETERMINED STATUS CATALOGUE 74

Second line

F. Aright arm, seen frontally.

G.The small and fourth fingers of a right hand, seen from

above.

H.Right? part of torso and shoulder, seen frontally.

Third line

I.Aleft hand.

Discussion

It seems possible, though hardly provable, that there is a

connection between the large figure on the recto, which

seems to represent a drunken faun, and Michelangelo’s

design for a Bacchanal for Alfonso d’Este, for which

an autograph figure study survives in the Louvre

(Inv. 697 /J 21 /Corpus 69 ;red chalk, 275 × 173 mm).

This is the only project by Michelangelo or a member of

his studio dating from the15 2 0slikely to have included

drunken fauns, although, of course, Michelangelo’s artis-

tic interest in the subject of inebriation goes back as far

as theBacchusof 1496.

There are pentiments in both legs; this suggests possible

intervention by Michelangelo himself, improving upon

the version of his pupil Antonio Mini; however, the line-

work is not so emphatically superior to the rest for this

to be certain.