Five Standing Nude Warriors and a Beheaded Man

Author: Klazina Botke

This sheet can be counted among a group of more than twelve works of similar dimensions, executed in pen and ink on prepared paper (blue, green, pink and brown) that are attributed to the circle of Francesco Squarcione (1397-1468). The sheets come largely from the collection of the eighteenth-century amateur artist John Skippe. He may have acquired them during his stay in Venice and Padua, where he studied the frescoes by Giotto (1266/1267-1337) and Andrea Mantegna (1430/1431-1506) in 1773. The surviving sheets are now to be found in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Munich, Washington, New York, and two private collections.^[1] It is not certain whether the Rotterdam sheet also comes from Skippe’s collection, but the drawing style and images fit within those in the other works in the group. The collector’s mark lower right (a crowned eagle with outstretched wings above a castle with an open door) appears on seven other sheets.^[2] According to Schmitt, the whole group can be placed in the circle of Francesco Squarcione, whereas Popham regards them as coming from Squarcione’s workshop and by an artist in the circle of Marco Zoppo (1433-1498).^[3] Our drawing fits best stylistically with the sheets in Washington (studio of Squarcione) and Amsterdam (attributed to Marco Zoppo). The physiognomy of the figures, in particular, corresponds, although the Amsterdam sheet is clearly more finished and of better quality.^[4]

The drawing shows five naked men standing around a clothed but beheaded man. The figure on the left holds a long stick, which he has placed between the dead man’s legs. On the verso there are studies of six horses in different positions: walking, jumping and grazing. The top of the sheet has been cut off so that only the hooves of two of the horses can be seen. Some of the drawings in the Skippe group have a thematic link to the fresco cycle by Andrea Mantegna that he painted in the Ovetari chapel in Padua between 1448 and 1457. Among the images on the right-hand wall is The Removal of the Beheaded Body of St Christopher, the fresco on which, according to Schmitt, the scene on our sheet could be based.^[5] However it does not explain why the beheaded figure is the only clothed man in the group. Van den Akker therefore sees the sheet as an exercise in rendering different positions without an iconographic connection.^[6]