Study of the Head of Laocoön

School of: Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin, Jacopo Robusti) (in circa 1570-1580)

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Specifications

Title	Study of the Head of Laocoön
Material and technique	Charcoal, heightened with white, on grey‑brown paper
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 296 mm Width 212 mm
Artists	School of: Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin, Jacopo Robusti) Previously attributed: Titiaan (Tiziano Vecellio)
Accession number	I 69 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1570-1580
Watermark	none (vH, 8P)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Provenance	Francesco II d'Adda, conte di Sale, Milan (-1641), album of drawings from c. 1630-40, Elenco no. 16 (Titian); - ; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1926 (Titian); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	none
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	none
Material	Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Black chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique White chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Technique	Highlight > Painting technique > Technique > Material and technique
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe
Place of manufacture	Venice > Veneto region > Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Albert Elen

This as yet unpublished drawing was listed as Titian (1488/1490-1576) in the Elenco (inventory) of the D’Adda drawings offered for sale to the collector Franz Koenigs in 1926,^[1]and remained classified as such, with a question mark, until John Marciari tentatively linked it to the Tintoretto workshop in 2017.^[2]He considered it ‘bigger, bolder and more original than many of the sculpture drawings’ by Jacopo Tintoretto, ‘akin to the best of the Medici head drawings’.^[3]

The study was made after the Hellenistic Laocoön Group (Laocoön and his Two Sons Fighting a Sea Serpent), which dates from circa 200 BC. This group has been one of the most famous and influential antique sculptures ever since it was excavated in the ruins of the Baths of Trajan in Rome in 1506 and put on public display in the Vatican. From then on, countless artists studied the marble sculpture and parts of it, including Marco Dente (1493-1527) who made a drawing of the entire sculptural group, which is now in Rotterdam (DN 111/8). Our drawing only regards the expressive head of Laocoön.

Another drawing after only the head of Laocoön, viewed from the same angle as our drawing, is also in the Koenigs Collection (I 398), but now part of the missing group in Moscow claimed by the State of the Netherlands.^[4] Unlike the present drawing, the latter is autograph, more closely following the model in the detailing of the hair and beard.

Tintoretto, who is not known to have visited Rome, did not draw after the original but instead used a plaster cast as a model or perhaps even Jacopo Sansovino’s (1486-1570) bronze cast made for cardinal Domenico Grimani (1461-1523) in Venice (c.1506-08). The present drawing was probably made after that drawing or a similar autograph study in the artist’s workshop stock by a skilled draughtsman among his apprentices. A faint sketch similar to our drawing, but hastily executed, is on the reverse of a workshop drawing, now in Florence.^[5]

The author of the Elenco of 1926 considers our drawing to be a study for a head in Titian’s painting La Gloria, now in Madrid. He is probably referring to the head of the hovering male figure at bottom right in the composition, which is in reverse and its turn may also be inspired by Laocoön’s head - or a cast - but is certainly unrelated to our drawing.

Footnotes

^[1]No. 16: ‘TIZIANO. Studio per una testa della Gloria dipinta per Carlo V (Madrid)’. This Elenco is discussed in the introduction to this online catalogue.

^[2]Noted during a visit to the museum in September 2017.

^[3]Marciari refers to drawings after reduced-sized replicas of antique marble sculptures (busts of Caesar, Vitellius) and contemporary examples by Michelangelo and Jacopo Sansovino, including such drawings in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen as I 79, I 85, I 205, I 225, I 342, and I 396. The ‘Medici head drawings’ are those after figures on Michelangelo’s marble tombs in the Medici chapel in San Lorenzo, Florence (see our I 79 and I 85).

^[4]For more information about this claim, see The Koenigs Collection. For the missing drawing I 398, see Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. 1673 (Jacopo Tintoretto); Elen 1989, no. 397; Moscow 1995, no. 127, ill.; not in Rossi 1975.

^[5] Gallerie degli Uffizi, inv. 12995 F verso (upside-down); Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. 1630 (Jacopo); Rossi 1975, p. 62 (rejected attr.).

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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