drawing
- Museum number
- 1935,0722.1
- Description
-
The Presentation in the Temple; the Christ Child at the altar, the Virgin and St Joseph standing at l, the High Priest at r, an attendant bringing two doves on a tray and a woman with a basket, two men seated at the foot of the steps
Pen and brown ink, with grey-brown wash, over black chalk
- Production date
- 1588 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 232 millimetres
-
Width: 317 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit: J.A. Gere and P. Pouncey, 'Italian drawings in the BM, Artists working in Rome', London, 1983, no. 58
Gere & Pouncey 1983
A study for the fresco, of the same trapezoidal shape as the drawing in its original state, on the vault of the Altemps Chapel in S. Maria in Trastevere (best repr. Voss, fig. 185). The painting differs from the drawing in the suppression of the seated nude man in the foreground, whose place on the extreme l. of the composition is taken by the woman with the doves; by the moving upwards of the seated figure in the lower r. corner so that his head is level with the base of the altar; and by the drastic change in the pose of the woman on the steps in the r. foreground.
A later study, corresponding with the painting in all these details, is in Berlin (5776; Voss, fig. 184). Mr Pillsbury has identified a study for another of the scenes on the vault, 'The Circumcision', in the collection of Mr Joseph McCrindle ('Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings: Form and Function', Yale University, May-June 1974, no. 40, repr.).
The contract for the decoration of the chapel, dated 30 January 1588, specified that it should be finished in eighteen months (Bertolotti, 'Bolognesi', pp. 60f), and an inscription in the chapel does indeed record its completion in 1589.
Literature: Gere, Manierismo, fig. 24.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1935
- Acquisition notes
- This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1935,0722.1