Figure Studies

Perino del Vaga (Piero Bonaccorsi) (in circa 1527-1541)

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Specifications

Title	Figure Studies
Material and technique	Pen and brown ink (irongall) and grey ink, brown and grey wash
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 289 mm Width 205 mm
Artists	Draughtsman: Perino del Vaga (Piero Bonaccorsi) Previously attributed: Anoniem Circle of: Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari)
Accession number	I 48 recto (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1527-1541
Watermark	Circle, bisected, inscribed with letters B and ?, surmounted by a Latin cross (49 x 25 mm, in the center, upside-down, on P5 of 8P, vH), similar to Briquet 2972 (larger and without inscribed letters; Olmütz 1566), no similar type in Piccard Online [see image]
Inscriptions	'nolvoglire el camice che da lamanicha larga metilo indosso poi alza lamanicha larga esolivala / allaspalla allargala dirinto e fara bofurdore / cossì fato co[n] ditto camice appun[n]tarla dita manicha alla spalla diqua e dila co[n] grazia / fasamo cossì apu[n]tar u[n] pan[n]o diqua e dila dallaspala e fa busto e cigni fa.' (4 lines in a sixteenth-century handwriting, pen and brown ink), 'Ecelente' (below left., pen and brown ink)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Provenance	Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1924 (Nothern-Italian, manner of Paolo Veronese); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Mantua 2001
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Mantua 2001, pp. 310-311, no. 177
Material	Brown ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Pen > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Grey ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Technique	Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique Washing > Wash > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe
Place of manufacture	Venice > Veneto region > Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Surya Stemerding

This double-sided sheet of studies was listed in the Koenigs Collection as North Italian, in the manner of Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). It was attributed to Perino del Vaga by Philip Pouncey.^[1] The rapid curved lines of the pen and the busy mise-en-pages are typical of that artist, by whom there are comparable sheets of studies in New York and Michigan.^[2]The attribution to Perino del Vaga was confirmed by Parma Armani (2001) on the basis of stylistic considerations and similarities to his painted work.^[3]

The four lines of text in the artist’s hand at the top of the sheet describe the drapery of women’s garments with the aim of depicting them as attractively as possible. On the back of the sheet the description is realized in various figure studies with draperies around the neck, arms and bust.

The two wrestling putti with grey washes are related to those in a sheet of studies by Perino in Berlin.^[4] This may relate them to preliminary studies for the Spalliera del Giudizio (1541), a painted wall hanging that according to Vasari (1550) was intended to hang below Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.^[5]

The two seated women in the lowest part of the sheet are related to decorative figures, such as the Muses below the tondo with The Blinding of Elymas (1545-1547) in the Sala Paolina in Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. They differ from the studies on the back in the use of washes. To the left of the two women there is a small study for The Sacrifice of Isaac that may have been intended for the scene painted around 1527 at the top of one of the compartments of the groin vault of the Pucci Chapel in Trinità dei Monti in Rome.^[6]

The back of the sheet is covered with thirteen figure studies of women in a variety of garments, comparable to the studies on a double-sided drawing in Budapest.^[7]The seated figure at top left on the verso is particularly reminiscent of the figure in the middle of the verso of the Rotterdam drawing. Long curly hair flutters to the left in both drawings. The figure holds her extended right arm diagonally downwards, and her left arm is bent back towards her body. The puff sleeves are similar, as is the neckline of her garment. Both drawings are preparatory studies for Perino’s paintings on the ceiling and pendentives of the atrium of Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Genoa (1528-30), with which the Budapest sheet has already been associated.^[8]

Parma Armani (2001) dates the Rotterdam sheet to Perino’s final years on the basis of a supposed connection with the designs for the fresco over the door in the Sala Paolina in Castel Sant’Angelo.^[9]However, in view of the above-mentioned connection with the painted decorations in Genoa and Rome, we are keeping to a wider range of between 1527 and 1541.

Footnotes

^[1] Undated annotation on the Gernsheim reproduction in London, British Museum.

^[2]Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 1975.131.44; University of Michigan Museum of Art, inv. 1970.2.61 r.

^[3] Mantua 2001, pp. 310-11.

^[4] Staatliche Museen, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. 16359.

^[5]Vasari 1550, vol. 3, p. 939. Parma (Mantua 2001) associates the sheet of studies in Berlin with altarpieces for a Bacchanal in London (British Museum, inv. 1946-7-13-567), intended for the Spalliera.

^[6]The preparatory drawing for this compartment is in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 63.75.1; New York 1982, no. 166.

^[7] Szépművészeti Muzeum, inv. 1930.

^[8]Armani 1986, pp. 92-93, figs. 95-98; Mantua 2001, pp. 216-19, no. 107. The connection with the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj commission is confirmed by the presence of the person playing the cymbals at top centre on the back of the sheet in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. She is very similar to the cymbal player in Raphael’s study sheet of the Rospigliosi sarcophagus, a drawing that Perino took as the model for his Triumph of Bacchus in India on the ceiling of the atrium.

^[9]Mantua 2001, no. 177.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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Perino del Vaga (Piero Bonaccorsi)

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