Study of Two Arms and a Hand

Author: Klazina Botke

As a result of the inscription, this study of the two right arms and a left hand holding a stick was considered to be a work by Giorgione (1473/1474-1510). In 1967, Alessandro Ballarin attributed this sheet to Jacopo Bassano (1510/1515-1592) on the basis, among other things, of a comparison with drawings in the sketchbook of Palma il Giovane’ (1548/1550-1628) in the Academia Carrara in Bergamo.^[1] By way of comparison, Ballarin also referred to a further study by him in Amsterdam.^[2] The sculpted bodies in the drawings in Bergamo are more indicative of the drawing style of Tintoretto (1518-1594), although there is clear congruence in some respects with the sheet in Amsterdam, which is currently attributed to Carlo Caliari, the youngest son of Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). At the end of the 1580s Caliari worked for a time in the workshop of the Bassano family and, like Jacopo, he frequently used three colours of chalk in his drawings.^[3] We see in comparable studies by him in Paris and Rotterdam (I 54) that Caliari produced his drawings in black chalk, after which he highlighted some parts in white and red to convincingly suggest flesh tones.^[4] By way of contrast to Caliari, Jacopo Bassano often made much more generous use of red chalk to portray skin.^[5] The subtle indications in our sheet are consistent with this technique. The hatching, on the other hand, is much finer than, for example, that in the study in Paris and one in Ottawa.^[6]