- Museum number
- Pp,2.121
- Description
-
A draped female figure seated on a trophy, head of an old man with long beard at r
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, over black chalk
Verso: Head and body of an antique statue of the Nile
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1513-1561
- Dimensions
-
Height: 244 millimetres
-
Width: 200 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- The recto figure resembles the seated woman on the l of Franco's fresco of the 'Arrest of the Baptist' in the Oratorio di S Giovanni Decollato. The verso drawing, attributed to Girolamo de Carpi, is a copy of the antique statue of the River Nile, which was on the Capitol.
Lit: J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, Artists working in Rome', London, 1983, no. 121
Gere & Pouncey 1983
This drawing poses a particularly difficult problem. Popham, in a draft catalogue entry written c. 1942, pointed out the close resemblance in pose between the figure on the recto and the seated woman on the l. of Franco's fresco of the 'Arrest of the Baptist' in the Oratorio di S. Giovanni Decollato, which seemed to him to confirm the traditional attribution to Franco. In 1946, however, on the strength of the verso figure, he transferred the drawing to Girolamo da Carpi. Antal, though convinced of Girolamo's authorship of the verso, was inclined still to see the recto not as a copy after Franco's figure by Girolamo but as a study for it, revealing Franco's "facile, flowing line and rather timid wash". He admitted that the painting must date from some years before Girolamo's arrival in Rome, but concluded that Franco probably made a present of the drawing to Girolamo, who later used the other side for a sketch of his own.
It must always be with reluctance that one admits the possibility of the two sides of a drawing being by different hands, but in this instance we cannot but agree with Antal. If the recto and verso drawings had been on separate sheets we should have had no hesitation in attributing one to Franco and the other to Girolamo. The fine-spun calligraphic neatness and facile rhythm of the recto, particularly evident in the old man's head, top r., and the winged mask, lower l., seem to us characteristic of Franco; no less typical of Girolamo, in our view, is the verso drawing, with its greater emphasis on plasticity and hesitant, sensitive, delicately repeated contours which reveal a draughtsman who - unlike Franco - is in the line of descent from Giulio Romano.
The 'Arrest of the Baptist' is not dated, but to judge from the context in which Vasari discusses it, it was executed in the period between Franco's return to Rome "just at the time of" the unveiling of Michelangelo's 'Last Judgement' (on 31 October 1541) and his departure for Urbino in 1545 or 1546. Rearick's arguments in favour of a dating at the very beginning of this period (op. cit., p. 110) seem to us inconclusive. The point is of some extrinsic interest, for if the dating 1541-2 proposed by Rearick is correct then the payment of 4 December 1544 for the removal of a painter's scaffolding (see 1964,0331.1) must refer to the adjacent and also undated fresco of the 'Dance of Salome' by Pirro Ligorio, since all the other frescoes in the oratory are either dated or datable on external grounds; but unless some fresh evidence comes to light, it seems to us impossible to say whether this payment refers to the 'Dance of Salome' or the 'Arrest of the Baptist'.
Notwithstanding the close similarity of pose, the nature of the connection between the recto figure and Franco's 'Arrest of the Baptist' is less obvious than appears at first sight. Quite apart from considerable discrepancies in the costume of the two figures, the woman in the drawing is seated on a cuirass forming part of a trophy, an accessory which would be out of place in a scene from the New Testament - fantastic though Franco's treatment of it is - but appropriate in an allegorical or decorative context. Furthermore, the position of the l. arm, uncomfortably awkward in the fresco, makes sense in the drawing where the figure is shown resting her l. elbow on a ledge. It seems to us possible that Franco, whose dexterity as a draughtsman exceeded his power of invention, may have conceived this Michelangelesque figure for some other purpose, and thinking it too good to waste have adapted it for his S. Giovanni Decollato painting. Rearick, inexplicably, asserts that this drawing is a study for "the seated female figure in the upper left corner" of Franco's 'Lamentation over the Dead Christ' in the Lucca Pinacoteca, in which no such figure occurs (Voss, fig. 28).
The verso drawing is a copy, faithful so far as it goes (the cornucopia is only indicated), of the Antique statue of the River Nile which has stood on the Capitol, outside the Palazzo dei Senatori, since the early years of the sixteenth century (Reinach, i. p. 431; better repr. in C. d'Onofrio, 'Le fontane di Roma', Rome, 1957, pl. 107).
Literature: Metz, Imitations, facsimile engraving in reverse (Weigel 2556); F. Antal, Art Bulletin, xxx (1948), p. 96; Rearick, Saggi e memorie, p. 109; R. Keller, Das Oratorium von San Giovanni Decollato in Rom, Institut Suisse de Rome, 1976, pp. 96f.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1824
- Acquisition notes
- Gere & Pouncey 1983
Inscr. on back of old mount, now detached: "V. 15./24./Oo.19/5."
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Pp,2.121