- Museum number
- 1882,0812.219
- Description
-
Sts Peter, Paul (?) to extreme right and left, a prophet holding a scroll and a kneeling donor
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, heightened with white
- Production date
- 1435-1494
- Dimensions
-
Height: 129 millimetres
-
Width: 265 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Vasari's mount attributed this to Masolino. Berenson gave this in his 1903 edition to Pier Francesco Fiorentino, and in the second he gave this group to an unknown follower of Gozzolo called by him the 'Alunno di Benozzo'. He attributed to the same hand two drawings in the Uffizi, Florence (Berenson nos. 1866 C verso and 1884 A).
Lit: B. Berenson, 'Drawings of the Florentine Painters', Chicago, 1938, II, no. 1897; A.E. Popham and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries', London, 1950, I, no. 94 (with previous literature), II, pl. LXXXVI; B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, 'Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen, 1300-1450, Süd-und Mittelitalien', Berlin, 1968, I-2, pp. 500-1, fig. 709; H. Wohl, 'The Eye of Vasari', "Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz", XXX, 1986, no. 18, p. 559
Popham & Pouncey 1950
Attributed by Berenson, in his first edition, to Pier Francesco Fiorentino, in his second to 'Alunno di Benozzo', these two drawings seem indeed to be by the same hand as drawings (BB 1866 c verso and 1884 a) identified by Berenson as studies for pictures by this distinctive follower of Benozzo.
Literature: BB 1897.
Turner, Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1986
Vasari was the first important collector of drawings. This and 1895,0915.807 come from his 'Libro de' Disegni', which appears to have comprised some eight volumes in all and which he assembled as a complement to his famous biographies of artists (the 'Vite'). The format of each page of the volumes seems to have been approximately 645 x 485 mm, the architectural drawings, however, being preserved in albums of a larger format. Often several drawings were laid down upon a single sheet and their careful arrangement in abstract patterns, surrounded by ornate borders, were made to enhance their appearance.
Vasari was also one of the first critics to regard drawings as documents of the creative imagination, as important in their way as the finished work of art, and in the 'Vite' he often refers to drawings in the 'Libro'. As do the 'Vite', his collection of drawings was intended to illustrate the history of Italian art, from its beginnings with Cimabue (? 1240-c.1302) and Giotto (? 1266-c.1337) to its culmination in the work of Michelangelo and his successors (among whom he counted himself). In his attempts to be representative, he also anticipated the modern collector, overcoming what were presumably subjective preferences in order to document as many schools within his period as possible.
A number of sheets from the 'Libro' survive, the majority of which are in the Louvre and in the Gabinetto dei Disegni of the Uffizi. The British Museum also possesses several, of which 1882,0812.218-219 and 1895,0915.807 are good examples. 1946,0713.34, 1895,0915.550, 1948,0410.15, 1946,0713.67-68, 1946,0713.70-75, and 1861,0810.34 in the present exhibition can be traced with varying degrees of certainty from Vasari's 'Libro', but all of which, with the exception of 1946,0713.34, are lacking the characteristic ornate border.
Literature: BB (1903) 1897; BB (1938) 1897; P & P 94; L. Ragghianti Collobi, Il Libro de' Disegni del Vasari, Florence, 1974, p. 50.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1986, BM, Florentine Drawings 16thC, no. 142
- Acquisition date
- 1882
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1882,0812.219