drawing;
album
- Museum number
- 1866,1208.668
- Description
-
Bandinelli album: A male torso with the abdominal muscles revealed and details of the breast plate and the left rib cage. Pen and brown ink over leadpoint; red chalk (rib-cage detail); three intersecting circles drawn with a compass; three parallel lines drawn with a straight edge.
- Production date
- 1525-1550 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 271 millimetres
-
Width: 218 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Seventeenth page of an album discussed under 1866,1208.641/2 (with bibliography). It is one of three drawings by a different hand from the main group of fourteen preceding drawings discussed under 1866,1208.643/4.
The quality of the paper and the diagrammatic purpose of this study set it apart from the others in the album. The proportions of upper body are investigated through the device of three intersecting circles drawn with a compass. Two intersecting circles were drawn in leadpoint over the abdomen but were redrawn in pen and ink only in part. These proportions are commented upon in the inscription to the right and in the detail to the left. Whereas the principal focus of the preceding studies was the superficial muscles, in this study the abdomen is dissected (the unclear description suggesting this drawing is a copy). To the right is a detail study in red chalk of the figure`s left rig cage. It marks the only appearance of red chalk in the album, a medium suited to conveying subtle variations of form - as seen in Michelangelo`s Windsor sheets cited under 1866,1208.643/4 verso.
The drawing is by an anonymous hand, separate to any of the other sheets in the album. Lacking comparisons, it is difficult to judge if the red-chalk study is by the same hand as the main study in pen and ink.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1997 Oct-Nov, London, Royal College of Art, 'The Quick and the Dead'
1998 Jan-Mar, Warwick, Mead Gallery, 'The Quick and the Dead'
1998 Mar-May, Leeds, City Art Gallery, 'The Quick and the Dead'
1998 Jun-Sep, Geneva, Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, 'The Quick and the Dead'
- Acquisition date
- 1866
- Acquisition notes
- The title on the album cover demonstrates a Dutch or Flemish provenance.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1866,1208.668
