Five Figure Studies

Author: Rhoda Eitel-Porter

As first observed by Iván Fenyö in 1965, the Rotterdam drawing is by the same hand as a double-sided sheet of similar format in Budapest.^[1] In all probability the two once belonged to the same model book. Usually made of highly durable parchment, although from the later fifteenth century paper was also used, model books featured a collection of finished studies, often laid out in two tiers on the page. They were intended as a workshop’s repertoire of motifs to be preserved and referred to as needed. The Budapest sheet is recorded as belonging to Charles Férault (1877-1957), who was active as an art dealer and collector in Paris and Biarritz; by 1929 at the latest, when Franz Koenigs bought the drawing from the Lucerne art dealer Julius W. Böhler (1883-1966), the model book must have been taken apart.

The Rotterdam drawing depicts, from upper left to lower right: two standing female figures (perhaps two muses?), one holding a bow; a king in profile, with a sceptre, striding to the left; a standing, partially clothed putto (or God of Love,) with wings faintly drawn, with his right arm extended as if holding or dropping something; a dwarf, seen from the back with a cap sporting a feather and perhaps a raised staff; and minor, less accomplished sketches in black chalk, probably by a different hand, of a cart with wheels and a hooded falcon. On the verso are two elegantly dressed standing young men, both holding a staff, with one seemingly giving the other a long staff; a young page at lower left clasping his master’s sword seems to be part of the same scene. The Budapest drawing similarly includes vignettes and individual figures, but with accompanying inscriptions that are difficult to decipher and interpret – some may be labels referring to subject matter, others colour notes. We see: a standing man with sword and spear, annotated with rugante (an arrogant, annoying person/grumbler?); a man holding a small snarling dragon (fusto (a strong man?) or fulvo (tawny, orange-brown colour) or susio); the Tiburtine sibyl (tiburtina) and a standing soldier (seguazo (follower?) or feguazo); verso: a group of four women, one holding a child, and two holding cornucopias (finsione?); a slightly foreshortened head of a man wearing an elaborate helmet; two rabbits; and a hunting dog chasing a bear (turanti/auranti or aurantiasi, a yellow colouring?).^[2] The Budapest drawing represents a more advanced state than the Rotterdam sheet, with the addition of a reddish wash for flesh tones and more extensive use of gold paint for details such as boots, hair and the dragon. The figures on both sheets all belong to a secular context, with some, such as the Tiburtine sibyl, taken from antique mythology and others, such as the dwarf, animal studies and stylishly dressed youths accompanied by the page conjuring up the fashionable lifestyle of a courtly setting. The gold paint hints at their potential use as models for manuscript illuminations.^[3] Almost entirely devoid of setting, such motifs might have been used in narrative scenes illustrating courtly literature such as the enormously popular Roman de la Rose or have appeared singly in the margins even of devotional texts.

The skilful depiction of lively figures in space, the accomplished foreshortening of the head of the soldier and the short, wide-sleeved tunics, stockings and feathered caps of the figures point to a date of 1470 to 1500. Fenyö catalogued the Budapest sheet as by an anonymous Venetian artist from the end of the fifteenth century, possibly in part based on the inscription carpaccio in black chalk on the recto of the Rotterdam sheet. It is difficult, however, to discern specifically Venetian elements in the drawings or a local dialect in the inscriptions. Handling and technique do not seem particularly Venetian and some motifs, such as the leaping dog chasing the bear, are reminiscent of earlier Lombard model books. It therefore seems prudent to consider more broadly a North Italian origin for the drawings, likely produced at a moment of transition from the workshop model book tradition to the emergence of sketchbooks by individual artists.