- Museum number
- 1895,0915.595
- Description
-
Fabius Maximus and Socrates, after Perugino; whole-length, standing turned slightly to right, Socrates with a book under his right arm, his left hand extended
Metalpoint, with brown wash, heightened with white, on light brown prepared paper
- Production date
- 1465-1523 (?)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 222 millimetres
-
Width: 232 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Copied with a few differences after the figures of Fabius Maximus and Socrates in the fresco of Wisdom and Justice in the Cambio at Perugio (P. Scarpellini, 'Perugino', Milan, 1984, p. 219, fig.160). Similarly careful copies, intended perhaps as workshop examples, are in the Uffizi, Florence (1306 F) and in the Louvre, Paris (4381). The Uffizi drawing is in a similar technique to the BM study and may, as Ferino Pagden suggested, be by the same hand.
Lit.: J.C. Robinson, 'Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq.', London, 1876, no. 158 (as Perugino); A.E. Popham and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries', London, 1950, I, no. 202 (with previous literature); S. Ferino Pagden, in exhib. cat., Florence, Uffizi, 'Disegni Umbri del Rinascimento da Perugino a Raffaello', 1982, under no. 25
Popham & Pouncey 1950
The figures correspond with those so named in the fresco of 'Wisdom and Justice' (K. der K. 106) in the Cambio at Perugia, where, however, Fabius is shown with a crested helmet and holding a sceptre in his r. hand. The drawing can only be a copy made, apparently, in Perugino's 'bottega'. We can see no justification for the attribution to Lo Spagna which was made after the entry of the drawing into the Museum. The bearded figure occurs on both sides of a weak Peruginesque drawing in the Uffizi (no. 415E, photo. Braun 76543), inscribed "Socrate nel Cambio"; that of Fabius in one in the Venice Academy (photo. Braun 78081), there attributed to Tiberio d'Assisi.
Literature: JCR 158.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1878-79, London, Grosvenor Gallery, 'Winter Exhibition', no.47
1879 May-Jun, Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, 'Des Dessins de Maîtres Anciens', no. 96
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0915.595
