drawing
- Museum number
- Ff,1.6
- Description
-
Three figures with joined hands, after Michelangelo; one kneeling, the other two standing, and an anatomical study of a male nude
Pen and brown ink, over black chalk
- Production date
- 1505-1580
- Dimensions
-
Height: 247 millimetres
-
Width: 379 millimetres (irregular)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- The left hand group of drawings represent a crucified figure and a detail of a shoulder joint; they record lost drawing by Michelangelo. The right-hand group is a copy of a drawing by Michelangelo in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (van Tuyll van Serooskerken 2000, no. 45 / A 22). Hirst (1988) suggested that the present drawing displays the appearance of Michelangelo`s original sheet before it was divided. Copiests often rearranged the original mis en page and assembled copies from separate sheets; the close placing of the torso and joint study - when the copiest had much bare paper to work with - would suggest an original juxtapostion. Joannides dated the Haarlem drawing to around 1505, and linked the original drawing of a crucified figure to a putative project by Michelangelo to represent a mass martyrdom (see Wilde 12 / 1859,0625.555).
Lit.: M. Hirst, `Michelangelo Drawings`, 1988, p. 8, fig. 7 (incorrectly captioned); P. Joannides, 'Bodies in the Trees: A Mass Martyrdom by Michelangelo', "Apollo", CXL, November 1994, fig. 9 (detail of the left hand group), pp. 8-9, n. 28, p. 14; C. van Serooskerken, `The Italian Drawings of the 15th and 16th Centuries in the Teyler Museum`, Haarlem, 2000, under no. 45, p. 94.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1799
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Ff,1.6