Nude Boy, Sitting on the Ground

Author: Chris Fischer

Although published by Planiscig and Voss in 1920 with an attribution to Lorenzo di Credi (deceased 1537),^[1] this drawing was acquired by Koenigs in 1929 as Fra Bartolommeo (1472-1517). Nine years later Berenson attributed it to ‘Tommaso’, a name invented for an artist that he and Morelli believed was responsible for a group of works by a pupil of Credi under the influence of Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522).^[2] Nowadays many of these works have been distributed among the names of several artists who had all at some point in their career been affiliated to Verrocchio’s and Credi’s busy workshop. As well as Piero di Cosimo, the group includes artists such as Francesco di Simone Ferrucci (1437-1493) and Fra Bartolommeo. While it is impossible to place this drawing in the oeuvre of any particular artist, there can be no doubt of its origins within the Verrocchio-Credi workshop, as indicated by its technique, drawing style and subject. Closely related versions of children in the same technique are in Paris^[3] and Darmstadt.^[4] We find many comparable examples in depictions of the Madonna and Child by Verrocchio, Credi and their workshop, although none of them corresponds exactly to the boy in the Rotterdam drawing.

Little children were much too restless as models, as is evident from a sheet by Verrocchio’s pupil Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).^[5] In that amusing study of a child playing with a cat he tried to make his hand keep pace with the movements of the subject. As a solution to this problem, children were usually drawn from wax figures or plaster casts instead. In the inventory of Fra Bartolommeo’s estate drawn up after his death in 1517 there are no fewer than 22 wax figures of ‘children and other things’,^[6] and on a sheet in Hamburg^[7] there is a written record of a putto by Andrea del Verrocchio – probably a small sculptural model for workshop use – which was loaned by Lorenzo di Credi to a certain ‘Istella’ who then loaned it to Francesco di Simone Ferrucci (1437-1493). The drawing is one of 28 pages from a drawing book from the circle of Verrocchio, which contained a repertoire of antique cameos and Florentine sculptural models drawn from works by Benedetto da Maiano (1442-1497), Desiderio da Settignano (1428-1464), Antonio Rossellino (1427-1479), Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482), Antonio del Pollaiuolo (1433-1498) and, most frequently of all, works by Verrocchio and Ferrucci.^[8] The Rotterdam drawing may have belonged to a similar drawing book with a repertoire of figures drawn from sculpture although it has not been possible to identify a model for it.