- Museum number
- 1870,0813.882
- Description
-
Ignudo turning to right; nude figure seated almost to right, the right arm clutching drapery over the left shoulder, the face to front, looking down; after Michelangelo
Red chalk, with some red wash
- Production date
- 1606 (c.)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 388 millimetres
-
Width: 278 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Rubens made copies after figures from Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling on two occasions – the first being on his early Italian trip of in 1601-2. Drawings that survive from group are exceptionally large and executed in red and black chalk with white heightening and are all kept in the Louvre (see Logan 2021, nos.71–78 and comment on pp.109–11). The present drawing has been placed by Logan and Wood to Rubens’ second trip to Rome between November 1605 and October 1608. Depicting the ignudo seated between Jonah and the Libyan Sibyl) it was executed in red fresco with the addition of some wash with brush and minimal application of red chalk. The opinion that this drawing is from a second period of study of Michelangelo’s ceiling is on account of the stronger emphasis on anatomy and the overall more powerful character of the drawing. Rubens subsequently made a counterproof of the present drawing which he heavily retouched with brush and wash (also in the BM, see 1870,0813.883).
Lit: L. Burchard-R.A. d'Hulst, 'Rubens Drawings', 1963, pp.36-37, no.18, fig.18; J. Rowlands, 'Rubens: Drawings & Sketches', exhibition catalogue, London, British Museum, 1977, no.37; J. Held, 'Rubens: Selected Drawings', New York, 1986, no.22, fig.22; J. Wood, Corpus Rubenianum, XXVI. Copies and Adaptations from Renaissance and Later artists. III: Artists working in central Italy and France, (London & Turnhout), 2011, no.185; A.-M. Logan with K. L. Belkin, The Drawings of Peter Paul Rubens. A critical catalogue, Volume One 1590–1608, (Turnhout, 2021), no.158.
Entry from J. Rubens: Drawings & Sketches, BMP, 1977:
Apart from the emphasizing of the muscles, this is a faithful copy of the 'Ignudo' between Jonah and the Libyan Sybil on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Although smaller in scale than the series of copies of the Prophets and Sybils now in the Louvre, it clearly has been drawn like these, directly from the fresco and not after engravings. It must therefore have been done during one of Rubens's stays in Rome at the beginning of his career. The style is consonant also with that of other drawings from this early period, such as the 'Two Studies of a Boy' (T,14.1), a work probably from the artist's first stay in Rome.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1977 BM, Rubens drawings and sketches, no.37
1977 Oct-Dec, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, 'Rubens in Italy', no. 67
2000 Mar-Jun, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizione, 'Roma Antica e Moderna..'
2002 Jun-Sep, Edinburgh, N.G.Scotland, 'Rubens and Italian Art'
2002 Sep-Dec, Nottingham, Djanogly Art Gall, 'Rubens and Italian Art'
2004 Mar-Jun, Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 'Rubens - Universel'
2015 Feb-May, Bonn, Kunst und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 'After Michelangelo: Michelangelo's Influence on European Art'
- Acquisition date
- 1870
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1870,0813.882