- Museum number
- Pp,5.132
- Description
-
A recumbent nude woman sleeping; whole-length, her left leg drawn up
Red chalk
- Production date
- 1530-1540
- Dimensions
-
Height: 126 millimetres
-
Width: 244 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit: S. Béguin, in exhib. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, 'L'École de Fontainebleau', 1972, no. 207, p. 185 (with previous literature); E.A. Carroll, 'The Drawings of Rosso Fiorentino', New York and London, 1976, no. D.51; N. Turner, in exhib. cat., BM, 'Florentine drawings of the sixteenth century', 1986, no. 111; E.A. Carroll, in exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 'Rosso Fiorentino', 1987, under no. 117, p. 338; H. Chapman, in exhib. cat., BM, 'Michelangelo Drawings: closer to the master', London, 2005, p. 189; C. Van Cleave, 'Master Drawings of the Italian Renaissance', London, 2007, p. 172, illustrated p. 174
Turner, Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1986
This is one of the finest surviving examples of Rosso's drawings in red chalk. The pose of the figure resembles that of Michelangelo's marble statue of 'Dawn', one of the two reclining 'allegories' on the sarcophagus of the tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici in the 'New Sacristy' of the church of S. Lorenzo in Florence. As Carroll and Béguin have pointed out, the pose is also similar to that of the sleeping nude woman in the bottom left of Rosso's fresco of the 'Fountain of Youth' in the Gallery of Francis I at Fontainebleau and it seems likely that the drawing was made while Rosso was in France (from 1530 until his death in 1540).
Literature: BB (1938) 2444; Kusenberg, p. 142, no. 51; Barocchi (1950), p. 227; BB (1961) 2444; Carroll (1966) pp. 176f.; S. Béguin, Il cinquecento francese, Milan, 1970, no. ix and p. 82; Fontainebleau exh. (1973), Vol. II, 207; Carroll (1976), Vol. II, no. D. 51.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1972/3 Oct-Jan, Paris, Grand Palais, 'Fontainebleau', no. 207
1973, Mar-Apr, Ottawa, National Gallery, 'diito', no. 207
1978, BM, 'Gainsborough and Reynolds in the BM', no. 221
1977 May-Jun, Hermitage, 'Italian Renaissance', no. 53
1977 Jul-Aug, Pushkin, Moscow, 'Italian Renaissance', no. 53
1980, Adelaide and Melbourne, no. 53
1986, BM, 'Florentine Drawings 16thc', no. 111
2009/10 Nov-Feb, Plymouth City Mus & AG, Sir Joshua Reynolds ...
2016-17, Oct-Jan, Suzhou, 'Italian Renaissance Drawings', no. 7
2018, March-May, BM, G90a, 'Fontainebleau School'
2019 11 Apr-30 Jun, Macau Museum of Art, Macau, 'Italian Renaissance Drawings'
2021-2022 3 Sept – 20 Feb, Beijing, MWOODS, Italian Renaissance Drawings
- Acquisition date
- 1824
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Pp,5.132