- Museum number
- 1859,0514.818
- Description
-
Two studies of the Virgin and Child (one squared with numbers), half-length, with three copies by a studio hand; handwriting. c. 1522-24
Pen and yellowish-brown ink; red chalk (two copies); black chalk (the squaring and numbers, and one copy)
Verso: handwriting and trials of the pen; female figure - the head and neck clearest; unintelligible lines including round forms
Pen and brown ink (the handwriting); red chalk (the head and neck); black chalk (the lines)
- Production date
- 1522-1524
- Dimensions
-
Height: 399 millimetres
-
Width: 268 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The pen and ink studies on the recto (the top study is sketched with the sheet turned upside down) are drawn with brisk stokes and with parallel hatching, barely crossed. In both the light is depicted as falling from the left. They are dated by Wilde to c. 1522-4, his regarding the accounts or `ricordi` on the verso as postdating the drawings and thus the date of October 1524 they contain as providing a terminus ante quem. For Dussler (1959) these two sketches take `eine hervorragende Stelle` (`a supreme position`) in Michelangelo`s graphic production of the 1520s. The two copies in red chalk and to a larger scale are feeble by comparison and were drawn, presumably, by Antonio Mini (b. 1506), Michelangelo`s `garzone` to whom is addressed Michelangelo`s renowned exhortation to draw and not waste time. The didactic purpose of Michelangelo`s two sketches is displayed by their position on the sheet, drawn in opposite orientations and with space to the right for Mini`s copies (Mini was clearly also right-handed). Given that Michelangelo`s exhortation to Mini does not give space for the completion of the latter`s red chalk copy, it may be the case that Michelangelo penned the words following his assistant`s failure to complete the drawing. Christoph Frommel (2013) has recently dated Michelangelo`s exhortation to his unaccomplished pupil to 1504 - but is the handwriting so different from the lines on the verso dated 1524? The `s` of the first `disegna` recalls Michelangelo`s early script but is amended in the second (see Godfrey, 2014 [forthcoming]).
Between the top study and its red-chalk copy is another copy in black chalk perhaps by the same hand as the squaring. Wilde discounts de Tolnay`s view (1948) - upheld in 1976 - that the pen and ink studies were for the sculpture of the Virgin and Child for the entrance wall of the Sacrestia nuova (New Sacristy) in San Lorenzo since he considers the studies complete and that `it would hardly be possible to continue them downwards` (necessary if they were sculptural studies destined for the Medici Chapel). J.A Gere and N. Turner (1975), however, concur with de Tolnay. Turner recapitulated this view in 1986, his considering Wilde`s contention `less convincing` than de Tolnay`s. Perrig (1991) attributes the pen studies to Mini, regarding the hatching as being contradictory and failing to `register plastic or dynamic conceptions`. Perrig considers the squaring of the lower group to precede the drawing; this is incorrect - although it appear may to be since chalk is more prone to rubbing than ink. Nevertheless, this belief allows Perrig to postulate that the pen and ink drawing is in fact the copy (of a lost original by Michelangelo). Schmacher (2007) follows Perrig, arguing that in each of the two groups Mini first drew the Madonna and child composition in outline in red chalk then the more detailed composition in pen and in - a very unlikely sequence for a right-handed draughtsman and not taking into account the vast differences in quality between the pen and chalk studies. Schmacher considers it unlikely that Michelangelo would have provided his pupil with such sketchy models (2007, p. 128, n. 115). Schumacher (2013) appears to have amended his position, now accepting the majority opinion that this sheet represents Michelangelo`s work and Mini`s poor qualities. Schumacher continues to give Mini a corpus of drawings more usually given to Michelangelo drawings, however, his considering that Mini must be allowed to improve - it could be countered that such a leap of skill is extremely unlikely and that all links in Schmacher`s Mini oeuvre, principally consisting of exploratory sketches in red chalk, are to other drawings by Michelangelo.
A Medicean connection for these studies is supported by the accounts written in Michelangelo`s hand on the verso which concern purchases of material for life-sized clay models of the figures in the Sacrestia nuova. Michelangelo was working on two such models in 1524, and finished eight of them by the beginning of 1526. Wilde considers a red-chalk study in the Louvre depicting the Madonna seated and holding the Christ Child to her r. (de Tolnay 241) to be a variant of that on the upper half of the BM sheet. He also suggests that the BM drawings may have been preliminary studies for the cartoon of a half-length Madonna in the Casa Buonarroti (de Tolnay 239) whose authenticity Berenson denied.
Although acknowledging this link, Barrochi (1962) considered the BM studies to postdate the Casa Buonarroti cartoon and to possess a `più penosa interiorità`. Hirst (1988) notes that Michelangelo began the cartoon with the Virgin in profile, a motive that relates to the top of the two BM studies - thus strengthening the connection between the two sheets. The red-chalk sketch of a female figure on the verso could presumably also be attributed to Mini. Wallace (1995) gives the recto copies in red chalk to Mini, as well as giving an interesting reassessment of Michelangelo`s images drawn with pedagogical intent (see W41-2).
Lit.: C. de Tolnay, `Michelangelo III. The Medici Chapel`, Princeton, 1948, pp. 45f., 145, 213; J. Wilde, `Italian Drawings in the BM, Michelangelo and his Studio`, London, 1953, no. 31, pp. 62-4 (with further literature); L. Dussler, `Die Zeichnungen des Michelangelo`, Berlin, 1959, no. 149, pp. 93-4; P. Barocchi, `Michelanelo e la sua scuola: i disegni di Casa Buonarroti e degli Uffizi`, Florence, 1962, I, under no. 121 (= de Tolnay 239), pp. 149-51; F. Hartt, `The Drawings of Michelangelo`, London, 1971, no. 177, pp. 137-8; J.A. Gere and N. Turner, in exhib. cat., London, BM., `Drawings by Michelangelo`, 1975, no. 59, p. 63; C. de Tolnay, `Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo`, Novara, 1976, II, no. 240; N. Turner, in exhib. cat., London, BM, `Florentine Drawings of the sixteenth century`, 1986, no. 75, p. 111; M. Hirst, in exhib. cat, Washington, National Gallery of Art and Paris, Louvre, `Michelangelo Draftsman`, 1988, under no. 36 (= de Tolnay 239), p. 88; Ibid., `Michelangelo and his Drawings`, New Haven and London, 1988, p. 8, no. 10; A. Perrig, `Michelangelo`s drawings: the science of attribution`, New Haven and London, 1991, pp. 24-5, 27, fig. 55 (as Antonio Mini); W.E. Wallace, `Instruction and Originality in Michelangelo`s Drawings`, in A. Ladis and C. Wood (eds), `The Craft of Art: Originality and Industry in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque Workshop`, Athens, Georgia, 1995, pp. 113-33, fig. 1; C. C. Bambach, `Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300-1600, Cambridge, 1999, fig. 119; H. Chapman, in exhib. cat., BM, `Michelangelo Drawings: closer to the master`, 2005, no. 59, pp. 193 and 195; A. Schumacher, `Michelangelo`s `Teste Divine`. Idealbildnisse als Exempla der Zeichenkunst`, Münster, 2007, pp. 115, 128-9 (Antonio Mini); id., `Antonio Minis Michelangelo-Zeichnungen` in C. Echinger-Maurach, A. Gnann and J. Poeschke (eds), `Michelangelo als Zeichner. Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums Wien, Albertina-Museum, 19.-20. November 2010`, Münster, 2013, pp. 293-4; Christoph Frommel, `XX` in Echinger-Maurach et al. 2013 (op.cit); D. Godfrey, review of Echinger-Maurach et al. 2013 (op.cit) in `The Burlington Magazine` (forthcoming).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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1975 Feb-Apr, BM, Drawings by Michelangelo, no. 59
1986 BM, Florentine Drawings 16thC, no. 75
2005/6 Oct-Jan, Haarlem, Teylers Museum, 'Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master'
2006 Mar-Jun, BM, 'Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master'
2009 Mar-Jun, Frankfurt, Städel Museum, Michelangelo as Draughtsman
- Acquisition date
- 1859
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1859,0514.818
