Study of the Head of a Bearded Man

Author: Chris Fischer

This drawing was attributed to Fra Bartolommeo (1473-1517) by Zahn^[1] and Gabelentz,^[2] and to Fra Paolino (1488-1547) by Knapp,^[3] but in 1990 the present author recognized it as being by Giovanni Antonio Sogliani.^[4] It is apparently a study of the same bearded model that he subjected to four other studies in Rotterdam: I 563 N 188 recto, I 563 N 188 verso, I 163 N 190 recto and I 163 N 190 verso. The rugged features, the open mesh of crosshatching and the short segmented circular lines carried out with uniform pressure of the blunt chalk as well as the heavy pools and long wiry lines of white chalk, are characteristic of Sogliani’s drawing style.

Sogliani probably made these studies during the preparatory process for The Sacrifice of Noah, the first of three paintings he executed for the apse of the cathedral of Pisa in 1531.^[5] Noah's facial features and long beard, and even the brushwork of the painted version, come extremely close to this drawing. Sogliani was an eclectic artist who sometimes worked in Fra Bartolommeo’s style and sometimes in that of Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), and the painting in the Pisa cathedral is executed in a style very reminiscent of the latter, who had died the year before.

We do not know exactly how these and other studies by Sogliani became mixed up with Fra Bartolommeo’s drawings in the two Rotterdam albums assembled by Gabburri from material left by Fra Bartolommeo at the convent of San Marco at his death in 1518. But the most likely explanation would be that Sogliani brought these sheets with him as study material in 1536 when he executed the fresco on the end wall of the refectory at the convent of San Marco and left them there, after which they were added to the pile of studies by Fra Bartolommeo.