Folio from the Gozzoli Album: Head of a Young Man, Bust of a Man with a Cap (upside down), Both Facing Left

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 was the first page in the hypothetical lost drawing book, judging from the old folio number ‘1’ and inscription ‘carte 85’, indicating the total number of pages. The finger smudges in the lower right corner confirm that this was originally a recto page in the lost volume (now a verso in the album).

The head in profile derives from several examples in paintings by Fra Angelico (1387-1455), especially the Magus Jasper in The Adoration of the Magi in cell 39 of the Convento di San Marco, Florence.^[1] According to Berenson (1938 and 1961) it is also close to a frescoed head of an angel by Paolo Uccello (1396/1397-1475) in San Miniato al Monte, Florence (c.1435). Apart from the hairstyle, the head resembles that of the seated figure in The Birth of St Francis in Gozzoli’s cycle in the apsidal chapel of the Church of San Francesco in Montefalco (scene 1, north wall, 1450-52). Typologically it is also close to the frescoes with kneeling angels in adoration flanking the altar in the apse of the Cappella dei Magi in Florence. Amoretti (1804) erroneously supposed it represents a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) pupil Francesco Melzi (1491-1570).

The tiny figure below is by another hand, probably a late fifteenth-century amateur, as pointed out by Degenhart/Schmitt (1968) and in their opinion yet another indication that this was the first page of the lost volume, since books did often feature this kind of scribble in the front.