Studies of Animals: a Bear and its Cub, Two Deer and The Head of an Ox

Author: Gert Jan van der Sman

Going by the inscription on the old mount, this drawing was already attributed to Piero di Cosimo at the beginning of the twentieth century. However, the sheet was only published under Piero di Cosimo’s name for the first time in 1974 by Gigetta Dalli Regoli. The authority of the drawing was confirmed by William Griswold (1988) and Dennis Geronimus (2006).

Opinions are divided as to the original function of this sensitively executed pen-and-ink drawing on salmon-coloured prepared paper. Dalli Regoli associated the work with the Libro d’animali that belonged to Cosimo I de’ Medici around 1550 and was described by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). However, this book or album, which is no longer known, contained for the most part very diligently and patiently executed pen-and-ink drawings of ‘beautiful and bizarre’ animals (‘animali bellissimi e bizzarri, tratteggiati di penna diligentemente e con pazienza inestimabile condotti’).^[1] The sketchy nature of the Rotterdam drawing points rather to its being intended primarily as an exercise. Griswold regarded the drawing as a study ‘from life’, made for a painting such as The Forest Fire (c.1505).^[2] The bears, deer and bull on the Rotterdam sheet do indeed appear in Piero di Cosimo’s painting, but in different positions. This makes it likely that the drawing was made around 1500-1505, during preparations for the painting.

We may ask whether Piero di Cosimo had the opportunity to record three different animal species on paper ‘from life’ more or less simultaneously; he probably drew them at least in part from his imagination. Be that as it may, he did not seek an anatomically accurate representation, focusing rather on the animals’ postures in an almost playful manner. He captured the alertness of the deer very cleverly. The handling of the pen in the Rotterdam drawing is comparable to that in the study of St Francis Receiving the Stigmata (c.1500?) in New York, attributed to Piero di Cosimo.^[3]