Folio from the Gozzoli Album: Seated Male Nude, Facing Right

Author: Albert Elen

This is a folio from a hypothetical lost drawing book, a remnant of which is now part of an eighteenth-century album called the Gozzoli Album, held in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. For a general description, see here.

This page was originally folio 5 recto in the hypothetical lost volume (now also a recto in the album). The finger smudges in the lower right corner confirm that this was originally a recto page.

The figure drawings on the four violet prepared pages (folio 9 verso, 10 recto, 11 verso, 12 recto) technically match a drawing of standing young man, rendered in frontal view with the pen and with white heightening on a violet ground, now in Vienna (Albertina, inv. 12 recto), which is also listed by Degenhart/Schmitt (1968, no. 462) as a work from the Gozzoli workshop and originating from the hypothetical lost drawing book.

This particular drawing of a seated young man is a repetition of lower quality from the figure on the preceding album page (folio 11 verso) or from an earlier drawing, now lost, from which both derive.