- Museum number
- 1895,0915.654
- Description
-
The Lamentation over the dead Christ; the Virgin cradling the body of Christ, four lamenting figures behind, the crown of thorns in the foreground
Black and red chalk
- Production date
- 1513-1578
- Dimensions
-
Height: 251 millimetres
-
Width: 211 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- A close variant of the composition, differing in the poses and gestures of the two figures on the right of the group is preserved in a weak old copy in the Uffizi, Florence (7096E). A bodycolour on vellum version of the Florence composition probably by a workshop hand was in the Collection Chavaillon, sale, Hôtel des Ventes de Châtellerault, Christophe Sabourin, 31 May 2003, lot 22 (as follower of Clovio). There is another treatment of this theme by Clovio in the same technique and also from the Genevosio collection in Chicago (22.3173).
Lit.: J.C. Robinson, 'Descriptive Catalogue of Drawings by the Old Masters, forming the Collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, Esq.', London, 1876, no. 213* (asterix denotes that it was acquired after J.C. Robinson's involvement with the Malcolm collection); J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, Artists working in Rome', London, 1983, no. 70; Turner, Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1986.
Gere & Pouncey 1983
A close variant of the composition, differing in the poses and gestures of the two figures on the r. of the group, is preserved in a weak old copy in the Uffizi (7096E, as Vasari; Gernsheim 12738).
Though the technique and conception of 1895,0915.654 are - as one would expect - fully Michelangelesque, are also reminded of Pirro Ligorio especially by the type and psychology of the old man in the background. The parallel between Clovio and Ligorio is even more striking in another treatment of the same subject by Clovio, in Chicago (22.3173), in the same technique and likewise from the Gelosi Collection, which may be compared with Ligorio's Michelangelesque essay in black chalk, 1950,0526.1.
Literature: JCR 213
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1964, BM, Michelangelo, no.121
1986, BM, Florentine Drawings 16thC, no. 98
1996, BM, Malcolm Drawings, apx.
2010/11 Oct-Jan, Vienna, Albertina, Michelangelo-the drawings of a Genius
2012 Sep-Dec, Zagreb, Galerija Klovićevi Dvori, Giulio Clovio.
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0915.654