Taddeo Zuccaro Drawing by Moonlight in Calabrese's House

Author: Surya Stemerding

This is a contemporary copy after one of the original scenes in the Life of Taddeo Zuccaro in Los Angeles.^[1] The composition shows a youthful Taddeo in his night attire, drawing by the light of the moon. The young boy’s dedication to drawing is visualized in the single slipper on his foot, hastily put on in an effort to waste no time, and his sketches on the window shutters in the absence of paper. The original drawing by Federico was copied more than once, and two other contemporary copies exist in Oxford^[2] and in Florence.^[3]

Of the three copies, the one in Rotterdam is arguably the best. Although the contrast is less pronounced and the shadows are paler than in the original, the anonymous draughtsman of the Rotterdam sheet copied Federico’s drawing in minute detail. In general, the copies after Federico’s Taddeo series, such as the one after Taddeo Returning to Rome, which emerged on the art market six years ago,^[4] lack the originals’ lively shading and strong contrasts, and they usually also tend to be rather sloppy, with inscriptions seldom copied correctly. Every element of the Rotterdam drawing, however, including the sketches on the shutters, follows the original to the dot, and even the inscriptions are almost identical. The barely visible curved lines in the lower left and right show that the drawing was originally framed in the typical dumbbell-shape of the original Taddeo series, but was later cropped to form a rectangle.^[5]

Just as the palazzo’s symbolic portraits were meant to be paired with poetry, so the scenes from the Life of Taddeo were combined with short verses, written by Federico and meant to be a part of the decoration of the Sala del Disegno.^[6] The text that is kept with Taddeo Drawing by Moonlight in Los Angeles recommends the viewer to follow Taddeo’s example and study the art of drawing, even by night: ‘Nota l’essempio qui del’fratel’mio / Cosi si studia, ve come discaccia / Da gl’occhi il sonno, e da se l’otio rio’ (Note here the example of my brother / How hard he studies, see how he chases away / the sleep from his eyes and harsh sloth from himself). The verso of the sheet in Rotterdam bears an inscription as well,^[7] and it shows a verse very similar to the one on the drawing in Los Angeles, though not identical: ‘Nota l’esempio qui del frattel’mio / Cosi si [s]tudia, ve ce che si acorta / mente discaccia… l’...bl…[?]’ (Note here the example of my brother / How hard he studies, see what he realizes / the mind chases away…).^[8]