Study of a Male Nude Holding a Pole, for 'The Martyrdom of St Lawrence'

Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin, Jacopo Robusti) (in circa 1569-1576)

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Specifications

Title	Study of a Male Nude Holding a Pole, for 'The Martyrdom of St Lawrence'
Material and technique	Black chalk, heightened with white, squared, on (discoloured) blue paper
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 262 mm Width 191 mm
Artists	Draughtsman: Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin, Jacopo Robusti)
Accession number	I 452 recto (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1569-1576
Watermark	none (vH, 6P)
Inscriptions	'G. Tintoretto' (below right, pen and brown ink)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	J. Reynolds (L.2364), F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a)
Provenance	from the workshop stock of the artist (died 1594); his son Domenico Tintoretto (died 1635); his brother-in-law and workshop assistant Sebastiano Casser (died 1679); - ; Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792, L.2364)*, London; - ; Art dealer Julius W. Böhler (1883-1966), Lucerne; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1929; D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Exhibitions	Madrid 2007, no. 64; Rotterdam 2009-2010 (coll 2 kw 5); Venice/Washington 2018
Internal exhibitions	De Collectie Twee - wissel V, Prenten & Tekeningen (2009)
External exhibitions	Tintoretto 500 (2018)
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Von Hadeln 1922, pp. 43, 53, 58, pl. 46; Von der Bercken/Mayer 1923, vol. I, p. 95, vol. 2, fig. 208; Von Hadeln 1926, vol. I, p. 116; Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. 1677; Rossi 1975, pp. 40, 45, 56, fig. 178; Aikema/Meijer 1985, p. 55; Pallucchini/Rossi 1982, p. 230, under no. 453; Rossi 1991, pp. 44-47; Rearick 1996, p. 181 n. 49; Rearick 2001, p. 229 n. 252 (recto Jacopo, verso workshop); Madrid 2007, pp. 355, 414-415, no. 64, ill.; Bush 2015, pp. 15-16, fig. 5; Venice/Washington 2018, pp. 184-85, 187, 262, fig. 166; Marciari 2018, pp. 128, 140 n. 25
Material	Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique Black 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

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Albert Elen

Tintoretto made countless nude studies from life models in preparation for compositions containing figures in different poses, performing various actions. These sheets are the extant witnesses of the creative process leading up to the master’s many paintings. The Rotterdam study is one of two such preliminary drawings made for individual figures in Jacopo’s The Martyrdom of St Lawrence, which was painted in 1569-76 for the Bonomi family as their chapel’s altarpiece in Andrea Palladio’s church of San Francesco della Vigna in Venice. They rejected the painting for some reason, it was subsequently sold to the Morosini family and is now in a private collection in London.^[1]A considerably larger and later version (c.1578-80) is currently in Oxford and our study was first connected with that painting, until the smaller version surfaced in 1991 and was convincingly identified by Rossi (1991) as the original painting mentioned as ‘una picciola istoria’ by Tintoretto’s biographer Ridolfi in his Maraviglie dell’arte (1642).^[2]

Our study was made for the executioner with a pole at centre right, who is not stoking up the fire under the gridiron but adding to the martyr’s suffering by using his full weight to thrust a spear into his right inner thigh, seemingly close to his crotch.^[3] This rather gruesome and uncomfortable sight, with the unbound martyr writhing in a dramatic balancing pose on the hot gridiron, may actually have distressed the patron and his family, leading to the refusal of the painting. Another black chalk drawing, preparatory for the man at far right carrying wood for the fire, is now in London.^[4] In both drawings the bodies are created out of quick cursive strokes of the black chalk, with little interior modelling. They are similarly squared for transfer to the canvas, and unanimously accepted as closely related authentic works by the master himself, culminating in their reunion with the paintings in the great Tintoretto exhibitions in Madrid (2007) and Venice (2018).

Von Hadeln (1922, 1926) had already noticed that the Rotterdam study is also related to the figure at lower right in the naval battle scene The Abduction of Helen, now in Madrid.^[5]Standing in a boat, this fully clothed warrior likewise thrusts a spear, this time into the breast of an adversary who is trying to pull himself out of the water into the boat. The figure is seen slightly from above and the correspondence with the drawing is limited to the upper body. Opinions differ about the dating of the canvas, between c.1578-79 and 1588-89, but in any event it is closer in time to the Oxford version of the St Lawrence painting. Our drawing is therefore a good example of practical reuse, with modifications, of an existing drawing, kept in the workshop’s repertory of motifs.^[6]

The drawing on the reverse is a workshop tracing of the outlines of the recto drawing and is therefore in mirror image.

Footnotes

^[1]On loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (seen there in 2013, dated c.1585-90 on the label); Rossi 1991, no. 18; Koshikawa 1996a, p. 49, fig. 4; Madrid 2007, p. 415, fig. 206; Venice/Washington 2018, pp. 184-85, 256 (with full tombstone data), fig. 169.

^[2]Christ Church Picture Gallery, inv. 213 (stolen in the night of 14 March 2020); De Vecchi 1970, no. 279, pl. 50; Pallucchini/Rossi 1982, no. 453, fig. 578 (dated 1585-90); Venice/Washington 2018, pp. 184-85, fig. 168; Madrid 2007, no. 43, ill. (dated c.1578-80); Venice/Washington 2018, pp. 184-85, fig. 168 (dated c.1575). Citation from Ridolfi (1642), p. 71.

^[3]The heavily shaded scene makes it difficult to discern exactly where the spear is entering the body. In the London version, the spear seems to point at the right hip, but it is possible that the underdrawing is visible through the paint of the right upper leg (this could not be established with certainty on the basis of a photograph); in the Oxford version this is not the case, the spear clearly enters the inner thigh.

^[4]Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. Dyce 241; Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. 1700, pl. 113.4; Rossi 1975, pp. 44-45, fig. 179; Koshikawa 1996a, p. 49, fig. 5; Madrid 2007, no. 65, ill.

^[5] Museo del Prado, inv. P000399; De Vecchi 1970, no. 280, pl. 56 (dated 1588-89); Pallucchini/Rossi 1982, no. 414, fig. 527, pl. 28 (dated 1580-85); Madrid 2007, no. 41, ill. (dated 1578-79).

^[6]This notion of reuse was first suggested by Von Hadeln (1922, 1926).

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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