The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

P 1 : JZP
0521551335 c 07 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 13 : 37

38 4 MISCELLANEOUS CATALOGUE 110

Condition

Double-sided solid museum mount with bevelled inlay

attached to verso.

Recto: There is overall ingrained surface dirt. There

is a large vertical tear that has been repaired from the

centre and several patches at the bottom and the top right

corner of the sheet. There are small spots visible, especially

in the washed areas at the right, which may be foxing.

The medium has suffered from abrasion and loss to the

heavily applied lines, and show-through of the medium

has occurred.

Ve r so: There is abrasion of the media overall. Particu-

larly visible on this side is that the darkest (i.e., the most

heavily applied) lines are beginning to halo and to break

down the primary support.

Description

Verso

Three nude men, with the possible indication of the head

of a fourth between the central figure and that on the left

and, perhaps, a further profile at the far right.

Discussion

Parker, to whom the attribution is due, first noted

the probable dependence of the recto figure from

Michelangelo’s design of Venus and Cupid,acartoon

made for execution as a painting by Jacopo Pon-

tormo for Michelangelo’s friend Bartolommeo Bettini (a

painting generally identified with this work, on panel,

128 × 197 cm, is in the Accademia, Florence). This

project was under way in 1532 – 3 , which implies that

the present sheet was made around the mid-153 0s, at a

moment when Battista Franco would have been heavily

under the impress of Raffaello da Montelupo and eager

to absorb Michelangelo’s most recent Florentine work.

However, it cannot be excluded that the drawing was

in fact made in Rome. Bettini left Florence for Rome

in 1536 and (as suggested by Costamagna, 1995 ,p. 218 )

probably took Michelangelo’s cartoon with him. There

are distinct similarities in style to Cat. 109.

The action of the verso drawing is difficult to interpret

with any confidence as is the relation between the chalk

underdrawing and the pen-work, which in places diverge

considerably from each other. The left-hand figure, seen

nearly in profile, seems to be clasping his right knee with,

no doubt, both hands. The right-hand figure’s head is

also in profile, but his torso is turned outward to the

viewer, while his legs are stretched out, one crossed over

the other, in front of those of his companion at the

left. His right arm is stretched out to rest on his right