Studies of a Seated Male Nude

Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci) (in circa 1517-1518)

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Specifications

Title	Studies of a Seated Male Nude
Material and technique	Red chalk, heightened with white
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 372 mm Width 253 mm
Artists	Draughtsman: Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci)
Accession number	I 285 recto (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1517-1518
Watermark	fruit with two leaves (71 x 48 mm, upside down, centre of folio, on P4 of 7P, vH), similar to Briquet 7386-88 (7392 (Lucca 1516-1518), very similar to but smaller than watermarks of this type in various drawings by Fra Bartolommeo in the Gabburri albums, incl. inv. I 563 M 138 (dated 1515-1516).
Inscriptions	‘No. 230:’ (lower centre, in pen and brown ink); ‘Michelagnolo’ (lower right, in pen and brown ink, partly erased); ‘Raff[aello]’ (verso, right border, in pen and brown ink, partly erased)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Provenance	Jean-François Gigoux (1806-1894, L.1164), Paris; his sale, Paris (Delestre) 20-23.03.1882, lot 163 (Andrea del Sarto); Alphonse Legros (1837-1911, L.140a deest), London; - ; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1929 (Andrea del Sarto); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	Amsterdam 1934, no. 620; Rotterdam 1938-1939, no. 54; Rotterdam 1997-98; Rotterdam 2010-2011 (coll 2 kw 7, 9); Rotterdam 2016 (Rondom Fra B.)
Internal exhibitions	De Collectie Twee - wissel IX, Prenten & Tekeningen (2011) De Collectie Twee - wissel VII, Prenten & Tekeningen (2010) Rondom Fra Bartolommeo (2016)
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Byam Shaw 1929-30, pp. 23-25, pl. 27 (recto) and fig. 6 (verso) (Andrea del Sarto or young Pontormo?); Amsterdam 1934, no. 620 (Pontormo); Venturi 1934, p. 49; Fraenckel 1935, p. 195 (Pontormo); Juynboll 1938, pp. 19-20, ill. 19; Berenson 1938, vol. 2, p. 247, no. 1761D (Naldini); Rotterdam 1938-39, no. 54 (recto and verso: Pontormo); Freedberg/Cox Rearick 1961, p. 8, fig. 19 (verso) and 21 (recto); Freedberg 1961, p. 259, no. 285; Freedberg 1963, p. 71, under no. 34, note 4 (Pontormo); Berti 1964, p. XLII (recto and verso: Pontormo); Cox Rearick 1964, vol. 1, pp. 128-129, no. 37, under no. 38, vol. 2, fig. 44 (recto) and pp. 141-142, no. 64, vol. 2, fig. 68 (verso) (Pontormo); Forlani Tempesti 1967, p. 83, note 6 (recto and verso: Naldini); Berti 1973, p. 93, under nos. 44 to 52 (verso: Pontormo); Florence 1980, p. 174, under no. 404 (verso: Pontormo); Forlani Tempesti 1981, p. 119, 122 note 4 (verso: Pontormo) and p. 122, notes 3 and 6 (recto: Pontormo); Goldner 1988, p. 91, under no. 35 (verso: Pontormo); Fort Worth/New York/Chicago 1994, p. 44, under no. 14 (recto: Pontormo); Costamagna 1994, p. 137, under no. 24 (recto: Pontormo); p. 139, under no. 26 and p. 276, under no. A17 (verso: Pontormo); p. 275, under no. A17 (verso: Pontormo); Falciani 1996, p. 25, under no. II.8 (verso), p. 44, under no. III.2 (recto) (Pontormo); Empoli 2013-14, p. 96, under no. 2 (verso)
Material	Red chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Maud Guichané

Jacopo Pontormo, 'Holy Family and Saints', 1518, oil on panel, 214 x 185 cm, Florence, San Michele Visdomini Church

A prolific and talented draughtsman, Jacopo Pontormo often covered both sides of his sheets with large figure studies. Executed in an ambitious and energetic manner, these drawings betray the speed of the artist’s hand as it followed his gaze fixed on a model in the studio.^[1]

On the recto of this sheet is a preparatory study for the seated St John the Baptist in the centre of the Pala Pucci, an altarpiece painted in 1518 for the church of San Michele Visdomini in Florence.^[2]In this masterpiece, Pontormo combined a variety of influences and reinterpreted them in a personal formal language, helping to define the maniera moderna that was becoming dominant in Florence in those years.^[3]Our drawing belongs to an important group of sheets that have been associated with the figure of the young St John the Baptist: drawings of nude young boys, seated in profile or seen from the front, turning towards the viewer, their legs akimbo.^[4]These studies have an undeniable kinship with the figure in the altarpiece and scholars have attempted to establish a chronology in their development towards the painting.^[5]But close observation of this group of sheets questions this scholarly search for a supposed linearity in Pontormo's graphic experiments, from an A pose to a B pose (the one retained in the final painting). Pontormo was inspired by and copied – sometimes literally – his own works,^[6]and those of his predecessors or contemporaries, in particular his master, Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531).^[7]These references were often appropriated by Pontormo via the medium of drawing, and might incorporate creative interpretations of several sources at the same time. Thus, our sheet recalls the young Jesus of the Holy Conversation of San Ruffillo (1514) in Santissima Annunziata in Florence.^[8]It also evokes Raphael’s (1483-1520) Madonna dell'Impannata,^[9]a common source often referred to by Sarto and Pontormo. Our drawing entered the Rotterdam collection under the name of Andrea del Sarto and, in the Gigoux sale, was described as preparatory to his painting The Charity.^[10]But its manner corresponds very clearly to Pontormo’s studies of the years 1517-18.^[11]

The verso of this sheet was considered to be a study for a Pietà^[12] painted on a small panel that was previously given to Pontormo and associated with the Pala Pucci.^[13] However this attribution and the connection to the painting have since been unanimously rejected.^[14]The Rotterdam drawing is instead related to a group of preparatory studies for a lost Pietà by Pontormo, probably corresponding to the fresco painted by the artist around 1518 for the convent of San Gallo, which was described by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) before it was later destroyed.^[15]However, our drawing differs from the other studies in the stricter profile of the position of Christ’s body, the width of the torso and the sharpness of the musculature, especially in the leg.^[16]

In his studies, Pontormo never ceased to repeat and vary the attitude of his figures until he had achieved the right pose, combining naturalness with expressive power. He explored the eloquence of the human body: on our sheet, the vitality of the child responds to the power and painful tension of the dead Christ, with equal intensity.

Footnotes

^[1]On Pontormo’s drawing practice, see for example Philippe Costamagna, ‘Recto-verso’, in Florence 2014, pp. 161-67; and Rome 2021-22, passim.

^[2]For the Pala Pucci altarpiece see in particular Costamagna 1994, pp. 134-37, and the bibliography cited therein. Only Philippe Costamagna has some doubts about the association of the Rotterdam recto with the group of preparatory drawings for the Pala Pucci: ‘étude pour le petit saint Jean-Baptiste?’.

^[3]Florence 2014, p. 78.

^[4]Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, inv. 87.GB.95; Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, inv. 6545F recto; 6554F recto; 6744F verso; 7452F recto; Rome, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, inv. FC124232 recto; FC124244 recto; FC124240 recto. All these works have been associated with the St John the Baptist of the Pala Pucci at least once.

^[5]For a proposal of the evolution of the figure of St John the Baptist, first associated with Christ, then isolated and increasingly frontal, see esp. Cox Rearick 1964, vol. 1, pp. 128-29, nos. 37-42. The order of the drawings she proposed was revised by Falciani 1996, p. 44, under no. III.2.

^[6]The attitude of these children can also be seen in the figures of young boys painted by Pontormo at Poggio a Caiano.

^[7]On Sarto’s influence in the Pala Pucci, see esp. Costamagna 1994, pp. 134-35, under no. 24; and Forlani Tempesti/Giovannetti 1996, pp. 116-17, under no. 17. The attitude is similar but reversed in relation to Jesus in The Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist, 1515, Rome, Galleria Borghese, inv. 334; and the similarity with our study (although still reversed) is striking in Sarto’s preparatory drawing in Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, inv. 304F.

^[8]In this sense, it can be compared with a study in Rome, Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, inv. no. FC124240.

^[9]Florence, Galleria Palatina di Palazzo Pitti, inv. 94. On the reference to this painting in Sarto’s work, see Costamagna 1994, pp. 134-35. Two drawings by Pontormo (Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, inv. 6554F recto and 6744F verso) are really citations.

^[10]Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 712. James Byam Shaw was the first to question the attribution of our drawing to Sarto and to suggest the name of Pontormo (Byam Shaw 1929-30, pp. 23-25, ill. 6, pl. 27).

^[11]Little credence was given to Berenson’s proposal who, for his part, mentioned Naldini (Berenson 1938, vol. 2, p. 247, no. 1761D). The attribution was firmly refuted by Cox Rearick (Cox Rearick 1964, vol. 1, p. 128, no. 37 and p. 142, no. 64).

^[12]Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, inv. NGI.103. On the relationship of the verso of our drawing and this Pietà, see Sinibaldi 1925, pp. 153-58; Freedberg 1963, p. 71, under no. 34, note 4; Berti 1964, p. XLII; Cox Rearick 1964, vol. 1, pp. 141-42, no. 64, vol. 2, fig. 68.

^[13]An association between the front and back of the same sheet of studies for the altarpiece or the predella led Freedberg and Cox Rearick to propose a comparison between these two painted elements; see Freedberg/Cox Rearick 1961, pp. 7-8.

^[14]Costamagna 1994, p. 275, no. A17, and the bibliography cited therein. For this small panel, the names of Maso da San Friano, Mirabello Cavalori or Carlo Portelli have been suggested, but the work is now in the Dublin collections under Tommaso Manzuoli.

^[15]Vasari, 1568, Terza parte, vol. 2, p. 482. The fresco was destroyed along with the entire convent complex in 1529, in anticipation of the siege of Florence. For a good overview of the work, see Costamagna 1994, p. 139, no. 26; Falciani 1996, pp. 24-26; and more recently Empoli 2013-14, p. 96, no. 2.

^[16]The homogeneity of the group of drawings was contested by Shearman 1965, p. 210. The drawing in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (inv. 83.GG.379) also seems to differ from the more coherent series of studies held in Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi: inv. 300F recto (composition); 6691F recto; 6670F verso; 6690F verso; 6670F recto; 6689F recto, listed here in the order in which we think they were made.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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