- Museum number
- 1946,0713.333
- Description
-
An old man seated near a kneeling old woman, behind them is a male figure
Pen and brown ink, touched with red chalk
- Production date
- 1533-1553
- Dimensions
-
Height: 265 millimetres
-
Width: 212 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The attribution of the group of a dozen drawings in the BM to the obscure Florentine painter Jacone, a pupil of Andrea del Sarto, is due to James Byam Shaw in the Christ Church catalogue (under no. 102). Drawings by the same hand are in the Ashmolean, the Louvre (inv. 1965 as Tribolo, RF 53163) and the Casa Buonarroti, Florence and elsewhere (see Lloyd 1968 article). This and 1862,0712.189 bear old attributions on the mount to Rosso while A.E. Popham catalogued the ex-Fenwick drawings under the name of Vincenzo Danti (1530-75), a Florentine sculptor. Subsequently Christopher Lloyd published the drawings as by another Florentine sculptor, Niccolo Tribolò.
Lit.: A.E. Popham, 'Catalogue of Drawings in the Collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., F.R.S., now in the possession of his Grandson, T. Fitzroy Phillipps Fenwick of Thirlestaine House, Cheltenham', London, 1935, p. 52, no. 6 (as Vincenzo Danti); C. Lloyd, 'Drawings attributed to Niccolo Tribolò', "Master Drawings", VI, 3, Autumn 1968, p. 243 (as Tribolò); J. Byam Shaw, 'Drawings by Old Masters at Christ Church Oxford', Oxford, 1976, I, under no. 102; N. Turner, exhib. cat., BM, 'Florentine Drawings of the sixteenth century', 1986, no. 115
Turner, Florentine Drawings of the Sixteenth Century, London, 1986
1862,0712.189, 1946,0713.332 and 1946,0713.333 belong to a group of some twelve drawings, all of them by the same hand, which are still placed in the collection, for convenience, under the name of the Florentine sculptor Niccolò Tribolo (1500-50), but which are almost certainly by another Florentine artist, the obscure Jacopo di Giovanni di Francesco, called Jacone, a one-time pupil of Andrea del Sarto and a spirited draughtsman of great personality. The attribution to Jacone of most, if not all of these drawings, is due to Byam Shaw, who also pointed out that other drawings by this distinctive hand in the Louvre, the Ashmolean, the Casa Buonarroti and elsewhere, at one time given to Tribolo, may now be given with some certainty to Jacone. This view had apparently been independently arrived at by Professor Ulrich Middeldorf.
The nineteenth-century attribution of 1946,0713.332 and 1946,0713.333 was to Rosso, an idea not far from the mark; they seem to have been preserved under his name while in the Lawrence collection, with the other drawings from this source in the British Museum group, and were sold as such at the Woodburn sale. Popham gave them to another Florentine sculptor, Vincenzo Danti (1530-75), when the drawings were in the Fenwick collection; the entire group was subsequently given to Tribolo by Lloyd.
1862,0712.189, before being placed with Tribolo along with the others in the British Museum group, was also previously given to Danti by Popham; it had been acquired by the Museum in 1862 as the work of Donatello.
The reasons for Byam Shaw's attribution to Jacone of the drawings in the British Museum and elsewhere may be summarised as follows. Two drawings in the Uffizi from this same hand bear attributions to Jacone, one of which appears to be contemporary (inv. nos 882F and 344F); a painting by Jacone in the church of the Madonna del Calcinaio at Cortona agrees well in style (with its "echoes of Sarto and of Pontormo") with the drawings; the inscription on a drawing in the Louvre citing Tribolo's name and the date 1530 or 1550 might be read not as a signature but as a record of Tribolo's death which occurred in 1550 (the handwriting is the same as that found on other drawings from the group including one in the British Museum, inv. no. 1946,0713. 328, which carries the date 1 October 1550; Tribolo died on 7 September 1550, according to Vasari).
Jacone's highly personal style of drawing is mentioned by Vasari: "Ma perchè practicò assai con Andrea del Sarto, disegnò benissimo e con fierezza, e fu molto bizzarro e fantastico nella positura delle sue figure, stravolgendole, e cercando di farle variate e diferenziate dagli altri in tutti i suoi componimenti; e, nel vero, ebbe assai disegno, e quando voile, imitò il buono" (Vasari/Milanesi, vi, p. 450).
Also eliciting comment from Vasari was the artist's unusual lifestyle, which has led Byam Shaw to the conclusion that Jacone "belonged to what would be called a "Hippy" society". Vasari reported that instead of leading the lives of philosophers, which was what Jacone and his companions had set out to do, they lived like pigs and cattle, never washing "nè mani nè viso nè capo nè barba", not cleaning the house and not making the bed for two months at a stretch (Vasari/Milanesi, vi, p. 451).
Byam Shaw speculated that the pinkish-purple stains found on some of Jacone's drawings (e.g. 1862,0712.189) might be "wine-stains" and that this might be taken as evidence of the truth of Vasari's statement that Jacone and his associates used their cartoons as table-cloths, drinking their wine directly from the bottle, but according to the expert opinion of the British Museum Conservation Department, these stains would have arisen not so much from spilt wine as from fungus action attacking paper that has remained damp over a relatively long period.
Literature: Popham, Fenwick, p. 52 (Vincenzo Danti), no. 6; Byam Shaw, Christ Church, I, p. 61, under no. 102.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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1986, BM, Florentine Drawings 16thC, no. 115
- Acquisition date
- 1946
- Acquisition notes
- Possibly W.Y. Ottley, T. Philipe, 11.vi.1814/687.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1946,0713.333