Various Studies including a Horseman and a Music-Making Angel

Author: Sarah Vowles

This double-sided drawing exemplifies the pragmatic repurposing of paper in Veronese’s studio. Here an old sheet of accounts, which includes dates from 1560 to 1562 and 1564, has been reused for one of Veronese’s characteristically dense and dynamic collections of vignettes, through which he experimented with various ideas of figures and groupings. On the recto are quick sketches for a Madonna and Child, an Entombment, a musician angel and a horseman. Through the latter, Richard Cocke persuasively connected parts of the sheet with Veronese’s The Martyrdom of St George, painted for the high altar of the church of San Giorgio in Braida in Verona, which is usually dated to around 1566.^[1] He observed that the horseman, in a distinctively foreshortened pose, is similar to that on the right of the Martyrdom, while the various sketches of the Madonna and Child, which skirt the sheet, gradually come closer to their poses in the painting.

However, the present author would note that the central vignette on the sheet, showing the Madonna and Child elevated on a pedestal, looks very close to the arrangement of figures in the Madonna and Child with Saints (the Pala Bonaldi) (fig.), which dates to around 1562.^[2] This connection seems particularly persuasive in view of the figure who leans on the right of the pedestal, with his left arm resting on its top and his upper body twisted round, who comes extremely close to the figure of St Jerome in the final painting. Although this could be a revisiting or reworking of the motif, rather than a preparatory study for the picture, it may alternatively suggest that Veronese began to make use of this sheet of paper while it was still being used to note down his accounts.

The sheet has been trimmed, resulting in the loss on the verso of some of the inscription and also part of a small sketch. This sketch seems to show two figures, drawn over one another and not necessarily connected: that on the left, most affected by the trimming, may show a figure leaning to the left with his arm raised, possibly a quick idea for an executioner, and perhaps also connected with Veronese’s planning of The Martyrdom of St George. The figure on the right appears to be a seated or crouching figure, hunched over and looking to the upper left. Similar figures do appear in the Martyrdom, such as the men who support St George, or the saints surrounding the Madonna and Child in the heavens, but there are no grounds for confidently connecting either of these swiftly-drawn sketches with The Martyrdom rather than with any other painting. Nevertheless, the presence of the dated accounts means that this drawing forms a valuable piece of evidence for confirming the date of the Accademia’s Madonna and Child with Saints and, more importantly, supporting the suggested date for The Martyrdom of St George.