Thursday, September 22, 2016

Drawings by Parmigianino and Andrea del Sarto

Parmigianino
Draped female figure
16th century
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Parmigianino
Seated male figure
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Parmigianino
Three male figures
ca. 1518-40
drawing
British Museum

Francesco Mazzola (il Parmigianino) 1503-1540 was a north Italian painter who made his way to Rome in his youth. The Sack in 1527 spoiled his expanding Roman career and sent him back north. Claire Van Cleave narrates an episode from Parmigianino's later days in Parma  "... he contracted to paint the eastern apse and vaults of the new Santa Maria della Steccata. It is clear from the many surviving drawings, some of which are very elaborate, that the designs for this project occupied Parmigianino for years, but he never succeeded in finishing the paintings. After the first contract to complete the scheme within eighteen months was broken, three subsequent agreements were flouted until December 1539, when the exasperated patrons had Parmigianino thrown into jail. On his release he returned to the church to deface part of the completed vault before escaping to Casalmaggiore, outside Parma, where the authorities could not touch him. His freedom was short-lived. By August 1540, when he was just thirty-seven years old, Parmigianino was dead."   

Anonymous print-maker after Parmigianino
Narcissus
ca. 1527-50
chiaroscuro woodcut
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Anonymous print-maker after Parmigianino
Lute player
ca. 1527-50
chiaroscuro woodcut
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Anonymous print-maker after Parmigianino
Tiburtine Sibyl
ca. 1527-50
chiaroscuro woodcut
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Andrea del Sarto
Figure studies
ca. 1520
drawing
British Museum

Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) was a Florentine, son of a tailor, who grew up copying the Leonardos and Michelangelos that surrounded him in his turbulent and fortunate city. He left Florence only once, for a year serving the French king.

 Andrea became a hero to Vasari (a Florentine partisan) – the famous Lives declare Andrea del Sarto to be, "free from errors and absolutely perfect in every respect." 

Andrea del Sarto
Study of a child's head and an adult hand holding a staff
1510
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Andrea del Sarto
Study of a child
16th century
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Andrea del Sarto
Standing man carrying burdens
1528
drawing (recto)
Morgan Library, New York

Andrea del Sarto
Standing man carrying burdens
1528
drawing (verso)
Morgan Library, New York

Andrea del Sarto
Figure study
16th century
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Andrea del Sarto
St John the Baptist
ca. 1517
drawing
British Museum

Andrea del Sarto
Standing man with drapery
1528
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

– Quotations are from Master Drawings of the Italian Renaissance by Claire Van Cleave (Harvard University Press, 2007)