- Museum number
- 1895,0915.581
- Description
-
The Discovery of the True Cross; men crouched down and lifting the Cross from an excavation, one man pointing to them and looking up to the Empress Helena surrounded by female attendants at right, classical buildings behind
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, heightened with white (mostly discoloured), on light brown prepared paper
- Production date
- 1496-1536
- Dimensions
-
Height: 476 millimetres
-
Width: 390 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- A superior version of this composition (but not necessarily autograph) was sold by Christie's, Monaco (2 July 1993, lot 4) and is now in the Hoesch collection, see Damm and Hoesch, 2017, no. 1. Peruzzi's composition is not known to have turned by him into a painting but copies of it did circulate as Jan van Scorel adapted it, in reverse, for the central panel of a triptych altarpiece in the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Kerk, Breda of c. 1535 (op. cit. fig. 12) and a more faithful rendering of it was painted by Giampietro Silva in a work now in the Museum for Western and Eastern Art, Odessa, from 1537-40 (idem fig. 13). The attribution of the Hoesch drawing is difficult to determine due to its very abraded condition.
Lit.: J.C. Robinson, ‘Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq.’, London, 1876, no. 144; P. Pouncey and J.A. Gere, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Raphael and His Circle', London, 1962, I, no. 251, II, pl. 234; C.L. Frommel, 'Baldassare Peruzzi als Maler und Zeichner', "Beiheft des Römischen Jahrbuches für Kunstgeschichte", 11, 1967-8, no. 71, pp. 109-110; H. Damm and H. Hoesch, 'galleria portatile, Old Master Drawings from the Hoesch Collection', Petersberg, 2017, under no. 1, pp. 16-24, fig. 2
Pouncey & Gere 1962
Please see inscription by Barnard. There is no sign of any name, but the attribution was no doubt to Mariotto Albertinelli (1474-1515), said by Vasari to have been the master of Innocenzo da Imola; lot 84 in Barnard's sale (London, Green wood, 1787, 19 Feb.) was: 'Carrying the Cross, Albertinelli', bt £2-4-0.
Attributed to Peruzzi by Robinson. We sympathize with Colvin's doubts, expressed in an annotation in the Malcolm Catalogue: "a coarse but vigorous example: if genuine?" While the composition and types are in every respect Peruzzi's, the insensitive quality of the drawing itself suggests the intervention of a studio-assistant. At least two other highly finished, large-scale drawings in the same technique and standing in something of the same relationship to Peruzzi are known to us: Louvre 1802, as Cesare Sermei, and 1418, as Peruzzi. From its over-simplified and emphatic treatment of light and shade, 1895,0915.581 might perhaps have been made in preparation for a chiaroscuro woodcut.
The style of the composition shows affinities with the late Raphael and suggests a date between 1515 and 1520.
Literature: JCR 144; BM Guide, 1895, no. 152.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Acquisition notes
- Inscribed (verso?) by Barnard: "No.751 / 19 by 15 ½"
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0915.581