Hovering Putto

Author: Chris Fischer

Ascribed erroneously to Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515) on the mount, the drawing has a correct reference to the altarpiece God the Father, St Mary Magdalen and St Catherine of Siena (1508) by Fra Bartolommeo (1473-1517) in the Museo di Villa Guinigi in Lucca. Koenigs inventoried our drawing as Fra Bartolommeo. David Lachenman, in a note of 2007, proposed an attribution to Maso da San Friano (1536-1571), presumably referring to the truncated study of a male torso executed in a Michelangelesque idiom on the verso, which seems to be by another hand than the drawing on the recto.

The perfunctory and inflexible handling of the black chalk indicates that the drawing is a copy, not from the painting, however, but from a drawing in Florence,^[1] as evidenced by the hatchings around the figure, which repeat those of the Florence drawing. That study carries an old ascription to Fra Bartolommeo, probably in Filippo Baldinucci’s (1625-1697) hand. His attribution was, however, changed to Albertinelli by Giulia Sinibaldi in the 1950s or 60s, and this might explain why somebody gave the Rotterdam drawing to him as well. Although less mechanical, the Florence drawing also appears to be a copy, made in Fra Bartolommeo’s workshop at the convent of San Marco, where he was a friar, but the original Fra Bartolommeo drawing seems to be lost. The putto was apparently popular, for there is yet another copy from it on the verso of a page from one of the Rotterdam albums.^[2]