- Museum number
- 1859,0625.566
- Description
-
The Massacre of the Innocents. Pen and brown ink, over red and black chalk and a stylus underdrawing; unrelated brown wash. The corners cut off
Verso: Studies of shoulders. Mid 1520s
Black chalk; unrelated, red chalk
- Production date
- 1524-1525
- Dimensions
-
Height: 276 millimetres
-
Width: 359 millimetres (four corners cut)
- Curator's comments
- The rather blockish drawing on the recto, with its agglomerated heads in the top half, is the work of a pupil, considered by Wilde to be a free copy of a composition perhaps dating to the beginning of the fifteenth century. De Tolnay regards the prototype to have been a fresco and notes that the style is substantially different from Michelangelo's youthful copies of the earlier masters.
On the verso there are between four to five studies for shoulders drawn in black chalk. They present a discernable sequence of execution, Michelangelo's moving from top l. to r.: he firstly focussed on the subject's bent l. arm in two adjacent studies before moving to the full breadth of the top back which, to the r., abuts the lightly drawn contour of the head and body added to the first drawn shoulder study. It contains a clear change to the far contour within the form of the r. shoulder blade and an area of unusual black specks (produced by the point of the chalk?) over the lower l. shoulder blade. As if in response to the less finished nature of the r. shoulder in the previous study, Michelangelo then concentrates on this part of the anatomy in the study to the bottom l. (it overlaps the elbow of the lower of the two l arm studies). The study to the far bottom l., partly obscured by the mark caused by spilt brown ink (over loose zigzag hatching), is described by Wilde as representing the muscles underneath the l. shoulder blade; it may have been conceived in relation to the r. shoulder beside it and thus represent a whole back in the manner of the top r. study. The thickened contour of the far l. study would thus be unrelated to the whole. Such a sequence is characteristic of Michelangelo's drawing method and is seen in an analogous sheet in both the Ufizzi and at Haarlem (de Tolnay 210, 215).
For Wilde these verso studies 'seem to be by the master'. He notes two sheets with similar combinations (i.e. of studies attributed to Michelangelo on one side, with studies after earlier masters by another hand on the other), one at Haarlem (de Tolnay 89) with a pupil's detail study of Giotto's 'Death of St Francis' in the Bardi Chapel on its verso, the other in the Casa Buonarroti (CB 36 F, not in de Tolnay) containing a pupil's study after Masaccio also on its verso, although not containing similar anatomical studies. Wilde considers that the style of the shoulder studies suggests the period in the mid 1520s when Michelangelo was working on the allegorical sculptures for the Sacrestia nuova (with which W43-5 are also associated). He draws particular attention to the sculpture of 'Day' and the sheets of preparatory studies for this figure at Oxford (de Tolnay 212, 213) and Haarlem (de Tolnay 215, 216, 218, 219). Wilde judges the W46 shoulder studies as being 'more explicit', 'almost exaggerated', than the Oxford and Haarlem sheets and hence intended by Michelangelo as demonstrations for pupils. For de Tolnay the link with the allegorical figure of 'Day' is explicit, his considering the studies to have been drawn from the life 'in vista della statua del 'Giorno'', adding, 'in modo magistrale è particolarmente trattata la musculatura del frammento della schiena'.
W46 and in particular the Oxford and Haarlem sequence of studies demonstrates Michelangelo's concern for the back view of the sculpture of 'Day', not the main one but that seen from the altar, 'the point from which the whole chapel decoration was planned to be viewed' (Hirst, 1988). W46 has a generic rather than specific relationship to the 'Day' studies, the subject being orientated to the l., and, in the first drawn study, seen standing. De Tolnay notes that Hartt (1971) judges the l. arm to be connected with the figure of 'Dawn'. Dussler (1959) acknowledges the related nature of W45 and the Oxford and Haarlem sheets but lists them under the heading of apocryphal drawings, considering the technique to be 'dry and pedantic'. For P. Barrochi (1962) W45 and 46 versos are characteristic of Michelangelo's 'raffinata, meditante anatomia' of the artist's post Sistine ceiling periods.
Watermark: Crossbow C: Crossbow in circle: large (J. Roberts, 'A Dictionary of Michelangelo's Watermarks', Milan, 1988, p. 19).
Lit.: J. Wilde, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Michelangelo and his Studio', London, 1953, no. 46, pp. 81-2 (with previous literature); L. Dussler, 'Die Zeichnungen des Michelangelo', Berlin, 1959, no. 554, p. 255 (apocryphally ascribed to Michelangelo); P. Barrochi, 'Michelangelo e la sua scuola; i disegni di Casa Buonarroti e degli Uffizi', Florence, 1962, under no. 46 (= CB 36F, no de Tolnay no.), pp. 173-4; F. Hartt, 'The Drawings of Michelangelo', London, no. 230, p. 178; J.A. Gere and N. Turner, in exhib. cat., London, BM, 'Drawings by Michelangelo', 1975, no. 100, pp. 83-4; C. de Tolnay, 'Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo', Novara, 1976, II, no. 214; M. Hirst, in exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art and Paris, Louvre, 'Michelangelo Draftsman', 1988, under no. 28 (= de Tolnay 216); C van Tuyll van Serooskerken, 'The Italian Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries in the Teyler Museum', Haarlem, Ghent and Doornspijk, 2000, under nos. 56 7 (= de Tolnay 216, 215), pp. 117-19; H. Chapman, in exhib. cat., BM, 'Michelangelo Drawings: closer to the master', London, 2005, no. 48, p. 181
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1964 BM, Michelangelo, no. 71
1975 Feb-Apr, BM, Drawings by Michelangelo, no. 100
2005/6 Oct-Jan, Haarlem, Teylers Museum, 'Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master'
2006 Mar-Jun, BM, 'Michelangelo Drawings: Closer to the Master'
- Acquisition date
- 1859
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1859,0625.566
