RD.10, recto Standing Male Nude
Recto: Standing Male Nude Seen from the Front with His Arms Outstretched, His Left Hand Pointing Downward;
Verso: Four Male Heads
Florence, Uffizi, no. 6485F.
Fig.RD.10, recto
Fig.RD.10, verso
Black chalk, 39 x 26.6; no wm. visible. Inscribed in pencil on the mat: Clemente Bandinelli (L.M.) [Luisa Marcucci].
LITERATURE:
Berenson, 1903, 1938, 1961, no. 2416, as Rosso.
Kusenberg, 1931, 135, 140, no. 23, as Rosso, around 1523.
Barocchi, 1950, 201, Fig. 174 (recto), as Rosso, 1521-1523/24.
Longhi, 1951, 59 (1976, 99), as not by Rosso.
Carroll, 1964 (1976), II, Bk. 2, 463-464, F. 13, 542-543, Bk. 3, Figs. 156-157, as Bandinelli, or one of his pupils, and possibly of the late 1520s.
Harprath, 1994, 359, Fig. 2 (recto), 360-363, 361, Fig. 3 (verso), as studies for Rosso’s Dead Christ and for the Rape of the Sabines engraved by Caraglio.
The drawings on the recto and verso of this sheet cannot be related to any drawings certainly by Rosso. In 1964 I thought they were by Bandinelli and compared the recto to his red chalk Drunkenness of Noah in the Uffizi (Fig.Bandinelli, Noah)1 and to the red chalk Group of Nine Nudes in Repose (Fig.RD.7), which I ascribed to Bandinelli. The Leonardesque heads on the verso reminded me of his Portrait of Jacopa Doni in the Louvre (Fig.Bandinelli, Doni).2 Ward did not include the Uffizi drawing in his catalogue of 1982. I do not think, however, that the drawing should be considered as part of the “sub-average Rosso material” that Ward thought I wrongly shifted over to Bandinelli.3 The figure on the recto has a vigor and an expertise in its anatomical definition, as well as a certain subtlety in the handling of the lights and shades, that bespeak an artist of talent and education. The Leonardesque heads on the verso reflect an artistic awareness of some poetic charm. If this drawing is not by Bandinelli then it is by someone who shares part of his background and artistic aspirations. I do not see the connections with Rosso’s works that Harprath makes.