Study of a Dromedary

Author: Klazina Botke

Franz Koenigs acquired this drawing as early sixteenth-century Venetian. Based on a comparison with a virtually identical drawing in London, the sheet was later attributed to Giovanni Battista Franco (1498/1515-c.1561).^[1] In 1983 Gere and Pouncey associated this London drawing with another study of three dromedaries, also in London, that could be securely attributed to Franco.^[2] The three animals appear in the same positions in his print Gathering Manna (c.1530-60), in one of his drawn designs for a majolica dish in London and in his drawing of the embarkation of the Greek fleet in Paris.^[3] However, the relationship between the two standing dromedaries in Rotterdam and London and the drawings attributed to Franco with certainty is not convincing. The animals resemble one another, but there are some crucial differences. In Franco’s drawings the dromedary is in a different position and has two split hooves instead of toes on its hind legs. This was a very frequent mistake; Baccio Bandinelli (1488-1560) and Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574) both depicted the animal with split hooves.^[4] Sixteenth-century artists often used the dromedary, introduced into Europe in the eleventh century, as exotic staffage and to alert the viewer to the fact that the scene was set in the Middle East. The animal was seldom found in Italy, so studies were rarely done from a living model. Franco also evidently had no knowledge of the correct anatomy of the animal and depicted his version with toes and hooves. The Rotterdam dromedary, by contrast, is correctly shown: we see four legs, all with two toes and nails. This makes it unlikely that this drawing is a copy after Franco’s drawing. There is, moreover, an offset of a standing cow on the sheet, rotated 180 degrees.