FJK 004

Bandinelli Baccio (Italian, Gaiole in Chianti 1493–1560 Florence)

Two Male Nudes Dragging Two Bodies (recto)
Study of Bearded Male Nude (verso)

ca. 1540-1550 according to Roger Ward
13 15/64 × 9 39/64 in. (336 × 244 mm)

Medium
Pen and brown ink on brown paper (recto)
Pen and brown ink (verso)

Inscription on old paper support: "oan matas"

Origin

Sale Pierre Bezine, Gallery Fievez, Brussels, June 14-15, 1927, no. 3
Private Collection, Great Britain
Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London
Sale, Sotheby’s, London, July 9, 2008, no. 77
Jan Krugier Collection, Monaco, JK 6819
Jan Krugier Foundation

Notes

In this sheet, we see in the foreground the very typical male studies, characterised by a slightly pedantic precision, which are so familiar in Baccio Bandinelli’s oeuvre, combined with rather more freely drawn figures behind. Although the sheet seems to have been trimmed on all sides, affecting our judgement of the composition, it remains a very sculptural image, and may well be a design for a relief.

Roger Ward has kindly confirmed the attribution and suggests that the drawing may be related to Bandinelli’s designs for a relief destined for the tomb of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, the father of Cosimo I. One, depicting a battle scene, is in Christ Church, Oxford, and the other is in Berlin (1). Although the monument was never completed, Bandinelli worked on the project throughout the 1540s and early 1550s, the period to which Mr Ward suggests the present drawing should also be dated.

Sotheby’s, Old Master Drawings, London July 2008

1. see respectively, R. Ward, Baccio Bandinelli 1493-1560, Drawings from British Collections, exhibition catalogue, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1988, pp. 75-6, cat. no. 43 reproduced p. 128 and R. Ward Baccio Bandinelli as a Draughtsman, unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of London, Courtauld Institute, 1982, no. 4, fig. 166).

Request for information/loan

The Jan Krugier Foundation is devoted to increasing the impact of the collection of drawings through regular loans to major exhibitions. Loan applications should include a complete presentation of the project.