- Museum number
- 1998,0214.6
- Description
-
Copy after the figure of the crucified Saint Peter from Michelangelo's fresco in the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican. Third quarter 16th century.
Brush and brown wash, pen and brown ink, over black chalk, with an additional study of the saint's hand in red chalk
- Production date
- 1550-1575 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 360 millimetres
-
Width: 305 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- This sheet is a near contemporary copy by an anonymous artist of the upturned figure of St Peter in Michelangelo's fresco of the 'Martyrdom of St Peter' in the Pauline chapel of the Vatican. It has all the exactness of a copy, possessing no pentimenti and none of the stylistic and technical characteristics of a working drawing by Michelangelo, the modelling carried out almost exclusively with brush and ink. The hand in red chalk would appear to be drawn subsequently from the drawing itself rather than from the fresco. The undrawn area on the saint's outstretched l. arm corresponds to the arm of one of the soldiers engaged in raising the cross, a further unequivocal sign of this drawing's status as a copy.
The frescoes of the Pauline chapel were commissioned from Michelangelo by Paul III in the early 1540s for his private chapel adjacent to the Sala Regia. Progress on the frescoes was slow due to Michelangelo's advanced age and his work on completing the Julius monument. The 'Martyrdom' was painted on the Epistle side (the r. side looking towards the altar) of the chapel after the completion of the 'Conversion of St Paul' on the opposite Gospel side. The chapel is relatively narrow, and Michelangelo's frescoes are thus seen in close visual correspondence. Michelangelo consciously sought a figure style different from the Sistine frescoes in which 'physical disorganization is the visual evidence of spirituality' (P. Joannides, 'Michelangelo and His Influence: Drawings from Windsor Castle', 1996, p. 185).
The figure of St Peter, at the point of being raised upside down upon the cross, is the compositional and conceptual fulcrum of the fresco, his gaze inspiring empathy in the beholder, whose eye is guided to the left, towards the site of the liturgical enactment of Christ's martyrdom at the altar. In the copy we see the saint's genitals, subsequently covered in the fresco by a white loin cloth, presumably contemporaneous to the over-paintings of the 'Last Judgement' carried out by Daniele da Volterra, amongst others, in the years after Michelangelo's death in 1564. Vasari does not mention the addition of the loin cloths in the second edition of the 'Vite' of 1568. At least two engravings after the 'Crucifixion', one by Michele Lucchese (c. 1507-15- after 1577), the other by Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri (c. 1525-1601) show St Peter in his original state.
A cartoon (Corpus 384) related to the 'Crucifixion of St Peter' is conserved in the Galleria di Capodimonte in Naples. It represents the group of soldiers seen from behind to the l. of St Peter. Carmen Bambach ('Michelangelo's Cartoon for the 'Crucifixion of St Peter' Reconsidered', 'Master Drawings', vol xxv, no. 5, 1987, pp. 131-142) has demonstrated that the cartoon has been patched in the top r. employing a fragment of the perforated 'sub-cartoon' used to transfer the master cartoon to the wall. The fragment of the 'sub-cartoon' thus preserved shows the perforated lines of St Peter's loins.
Paul Joannides (1996) has reassessed the value of copies after Michelangelo's drawings and completed works: they show the reaction of contemporary artists to Michelangelo, and were a significant means through which Michelangelo's influence was propagated, as well as having aesthetic value in their own right. The frescoes of the Pauline chapel were of perhaps less influence than those in the Sistine chapel, Michelangelo's idiosyncratic style proving of difficult imitation. The lack of access to the Pauline compared to the Sistine chapel may have also played a role in this respect.
As copies of the Pauline chapel frescoes are relatively rare it is worth noting a chalk study after one of the soldiers in the 'Martyrdom' fresco on the verso of a drawing attributed (certainly wrongly) to Farinati in the Ambrosiana, Milan (F 254, N.1345V; Gernsheim 97538 as Farinati). For a black chalk drawing after a head in Michelangelo's 'Conversion' see Ff,1.13 (traditionally given to Cavaliere d'Arpino); for a red chalk copy after a soldier see T,11.30.
Carmen Bambach has attributed this drawing to Orsi in connection with a more tentative suggestion that a red chalk copy of the same figure in Dresden (c 47; Bambach fig. 5) is by the same hand.
Lit.: C.C. Bambach, 'Drawings in Dresden, further newly identified works by Italian Masters', "Apollo", March 2008, p. 129, fig. 6 (as Orsi).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1998
- 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.
The frame in which this drawing arrived at the British Museum bore the label of the Royal Gallery, 41 Woburn Place, WC1
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1998,0214.6