Figures after Michelangelo's 'Last Judgement'

Author: Rosie Razzall

Having been acquired with the collection of Adriaan Domela Nieuwenhuis in 1923 as a drawing by Michelangelo (1475-1564), this work has so far not been included in the literature on Giovanni Ambrogio Figino.^[1] Despite suffering from damage and later additions, it nevertheless deserves to be recognized as the largest and most developed of the artist’s copies after Michelangelo’s fresco of The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

Although it has been the subject of some debate, Figino’s likely trip to Rome from his native city of Milan probably took place between 1587 and 1588.^[2] During this short visit he extensively studied Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, the works of Raphael, and antique sculptures in the Vatican Belvedere. Numerous copies of legs, arms and individual figures taken from The Last Judgement are among the large groups of Figino drawings in Windsor^[3] and Venice,^[4] most of which are executed in black and/or red chalks on blue or white paper. Figino did not often draw with wash, but there are several comparable Sistine Chapel copies in this medium, such as a study of a figure from Charon’s boat in Windsor,^[5] a demon encircled by a serpent in New York,^[6] and several drawings in Venice.^[7] The Rotterdam drawing, with the sheet entirely washed in brown and the figures drawn with the brush, also belongs to this small pen and wash group. While the other drawings reproduce individual figures, this drawing is a copy of the entire group of despairing souls dragged to Hell by demons at the lower right corner of the fresco, with each figure’s position carefully recorded.

The Domela Nieuwenhuis inventory notes that ‘in this drawing, around a century later, by another hand, white has been added to several of the principal figures and their contours enhanced, as was the custom for a while. The less prominent figures remained unimproved’.^[8] This observation is borne out by inspection of the sheet, where the contours of many of the figures have been reinforced in a darker ink, and the white highlights appear to be a later addition. These alterations also help to explain the difference in quality when the Rotterdam drawing is compared with, for example, the New York sheet, where there is no white heightening and the wash is more subtly applied. The Rotterdam sheet has also suffered abrasion, and repairs to several holes and to the central vertical fold.

Despite the sheet’s condition, the attribution to Figino (or at least his workshop) is ultimately accepted on the evidence of its provenance and inscription. After his death in 1608, the contents of Figino’s studio, presumably containing most of his drawings, passed to his nephew Ercole Bianchi (born 1576).^[9] Many of these drawings were later dispersed:^[10] a large group went to Venice where it was acquired by Consul Joseph Smith (c.1682-1770) and is now at Windsor, another group was acquired by the painter Giuseppe Bossi (1777-1815) and is now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, and another album was collected by padre Sebastiano Resta (1635-1714), the remains of which are now in New York.^[11] A number of drawings described by Cesare Cantù in 1844 as pen and wash studies in the collection of the art dealer Giuseppe Vallardi (1784-1863) had remained in Milan and had been seen there by the art historian Luigi Lanzi (1732-1810) in the eighteenth century.^[12] These Vallardi drawings include both of the Rotterdam drawings subsequently acquired by Domela Nieuwenhuis, as well as the New York study after The Last Judgement.^[13] In addition, the present drawing has an inscription in an early hand at the lower edge of the sheet: ‘Figino da Michel. Ang.^o’. Identical inscriptions can be found on Figino’s copies after Michelangelo at Windsor,^[14] and in Venice,^[15] and many other drawings are similarly inscribed ‘Figino’ or just ‘Michel. Ang’.^[16] Torrini reproduces several of these inscriptions, which may belong to a number of different hands,^[17] but their presence on drawings now scattered across different collections suggests that they were added to the sheets at an early date, perhaps when in the possession of Ercole Bianchi, and the drawing must therefore originate from Figino’s studio.