Gallery with Figures

Author: Surya Stemerding

The attribution of this sheet to the circle around Donato Bramante is based on a rare print after a design by Bramante that was published by Bernardo Prevedari (?-c.1493) around 1481.^[1] Only two impressions of that engraving are known, the largest ever made from a single copper plate in the fifteenth century, in London and Milan.^[2]

The similarities between the drawing in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Prevedari print are general, but the draughtsman clearly knew the print. The gallery in the drawing is composed of the same type of column as in the print, the prominent medieval wheel window features in both scenes, and another common feature is the round-headed arch directly facing the viewer that has been interrupted by a vertical column in order to open up the scene. The man with the spear who stands in front of the column in the right foreground also reappears in the drawing at the end of the gallery.

It is rare that the Bramantesque style was also adopted in the Rotterdam drawing, along with motifs from the print. The ambitious draughtsman was very obviously skilled in the perspectival construction of architectural spaces. The Rotterdam drawing is clearly of an early date, not far removed from Bramante’s design for the Prevedari print.

In Dresden there is a drawing that bears some comparison to this sheet.^[3] It is attributed to a draughtsman from Bramante’s circle and also includes elements from the print, but the execution is far more careless and the perspective is incorrect. In other respects, with its long gallery, vaults and staggered columns it does recall the sheet in Rotterdam, which as Melli (2006) has argued was probably known to the draughtsman.^[4]