Study of a Male Nude for a Pietà

Author: Klazina Botke

This sheet, still attributed to Bronzino (1503-1572) by Berenson (1938), is without doubt by Andrea Lilio.^[1] Several authors appeared to discover independently of one another that it is a preliminary study for the altarpiece with a pietà in Bagnacavallo (fig.).^[2] Lilio made the painting in 1596 as a commission for the Marquise Medea Ferretti Malatesta of Ancona.^[3] She gave the work to the Capuchin Franciscans in Imola, where it was placed on the high altar of the monastery church. In 1960 Antonio Corbara rediscovered it in the former Ospizio Cronici Bedeschi in Bagnacavallo.^[4]

The study is squared so that the scene could be transferred to a larger canvas. Lilio set down the male body, leaning against a seated figure whose knees are all that can be seen, in soft black chalk with a few heavily reinforced outlines. His head has fallen against his shoulder; the weight of the lifeless body is palpable. The refined interpretation of the shadows in the body, the face and the foreshortening of the legs gives way to a less detailed rendition towards the ends of the limbs. The same figure appears twice more on the verso, but more sketchily. Here Lilio seems to have been seeking the perfect position of the legs, and also drew the thin beam on which the model in the studio could rest his feet.^[5] The abrupt cropping of the upper body clearly shows that the sheet was previously larger.  

The head is shown again lower right. Here Lilio created a very subtle rendition of the face with the aid of many soft shadows and without hard outlines. Luijten (1990) noted that the lighting of the face corresponds with that in the painting in Bagnacavallo.^[6] Pulini (2003) pointed out that the very fine features could mean that the model was female and argued that Lilio reused the study of the head in his Mary Magdalene in Extasy (1606).^[7] The position, the shadows and the features do indeed strongly resemble the Magdalene’s. It would therefore seem that the artist picked up the Rotterdam drawing again almost ten years later.