- Museum number
- 1895,0915.452
- Description
-
The naming of St John; a group of figures standing around the infant
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1485-90
- Dimensions
-
Height: 184 millimetres
-
Width: 262 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Composition sketch for the fresco in the Tornabuoni chapel in the choir of S. Maria Novella, Florence, painted by Ghirlandaio and his studio between 1485-90. Popham and Pouncey 1866,0714.9 and 1895,0915.451 are for the same commission. When the drawing was taken off its mount in 2005, a summary sketch of the architectural setting for the 'Naming of St John' was visible through the backing.
Lit.: J.C. Robinson, 'Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq.', London, 1876, no. 16; A.E. Popham and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries', London, 1950, I, no. 70, II, pl. LXIX (with previous literature); J. Cadogan, 'Domenico Ghirlandaio, Artist and Artisan', New Haven and London, 2000, no. 97; H. Chapman, in exhib. cat., London, BM, 'Michelangelo Drawings: closer to the master', 2005, p. 54; C. Van Cleave, 'Master Drawings of the Italian Renaissance', London, 2007, p. 72, illustrated p. 75
Popham & Pouncey 1950
Correctly identified by Robinson as a composition sketch for the fresco in the lowest tier but one on the r.-hand wall of the choir of S. Maria Novella, Florence (Van Marle, op. cit., fig. 53). The purpose of this sketch is different from that of the drawing previously described: here the artist is not concerned with the relation of the figures to their architectural setting (which is altogether omitted) but rather with their various emotions, and with the arrangement of their drapery.
In the fresco the relative positions and the poses of the male figures and of the woman holding the child have been only slightly altered, but the position and movements of the female onlookers have been considerably changed. Instead of the compact group of four women standing close to the figure holding the child only one woman has been allowed to remain immediately behind the main figures. The two women talking together on the r. of the sketch have been detached from the principal group and moved farther to the r. It would seem, from the indications ' of drapery near the 1. edge, that the artist, when he made this sketch, already intended to place another figure to the 1. of the man in the long cloak, as he eventually did in the fresco. There is no trace, in the drawing, of the bearded man whose head appears between the cloaked man and the figure peering over Zacharias' shoulder, or of the two women in the middle distance and the two men in the background.
A sketch by Domenico for the two women on the extreme r. is in the Uffizi (BB 873, fig. 303). In it, as in the fresco, Ghirlandaio's affinities with the Umbrians are particularly noticeable; cf. the r.-hand figure with the woman on the extreme r. of the Caen 'Sposalizio'; also with a drawing in the Uffizi, 364E (repr. Berenson, 'Study and Criticism', Series ii (1902), opp. p. 5, as Pintoricchio) ; and finally with the r.-hand apostle in Perugino's Sistine fresco of the 'Donation of the Keys' (Van Marle, xiv, fig. 203).
Literature: JCR 16; BB 884, fig. 301; Grosvenor Gallery Winter Exhibition, 1877/8, no. 775; F. WickhofF, op. cit., p. 212; G. S. Davies, op. cit., p. 142; Van Marle, op. cit., fig. 66.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1996, London, BM, Old Master Drawings from the Malcolm Collection, no. 11
2018-2019 18 Oct-3 Feb, Munich, Alte Pinakothek, 'Florence and its Painters: From Giotto to Leonardo'
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0915.452
