{"id":2185,"date":"2011-11-23T15:09:14","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T19:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/"},"modified":"2012-08-14T11:03:31","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T15:03:31","slug":"d-31-immaculate-conception","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/drawings\/d-31-immaculate-conception\/","title":{"rendered":"D.31 (COPY) Allegory of the Immaculate Conception"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

D. 31 (COPY) Allegory of the Immaculate Conception<\/p><\/div>\n

For an Unexecuted Fresco at S. Maria delle Lagrime, Arezzo<\/strong><\/p>\n

1528-1529<\/p>\n

Paris, Louvre, Inv. 34939.<\/p>\n

Fig.D.31<\/a><\/p>\n

Red chalk on transparent yellow paper (papier huil\u00e9<\/em>), 21.6 x 18.8, laid down; wm., see Hercenberg below.<\/p>\n

PROVENANCE: Comte d\u2019Orsay (Lugt 2239, pseudo Robert Strange, on which see Hercenberg, 1975, 140, 144).<\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

Hercenberg, 1975, 164-165, no. 365, Pl.CXXXXII, Fig. 211, as from the shop of Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), as before 1729 because of the watermark, the lower part of the drawing inspired, according to Sylvie B\u00e9guin, by Rosso\u2019s Allegory of the Immaculate Conception<\/em> planned for S. Maria delle Lagrime in Arezzo.<\/p>\n

Daragon, 1983, 54-55, n. 8, as after Rosso\u2019s Lagrime Allegory of the Immaculate Conception<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Comte d\u2019Orsay, 1983, 180, Ors. 792.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As recognized by B\u00e9guin, Hercenberg, and Daragon, this drawing is related to the composition of the same subject designed for S. Maria delle Lagrime in Arezzo and known from a drawing by Rosso in the Uffizi (D.32<\/a>).\u00a0 In the Louvre drawing the Virgin\u2019s breasts, shoulders, and left arm are bare, and her left hand is bent upward.\u00a0 Adam\u2019s pose is slightly different, he is bald, and his genitals are visible.\u00a0 Eve\u2019s pose is very different. \u00a0She is bent over to the right, and her head is in profile and looking down.\u00a0 Her left arm is held against her body.\u00a0 There is no clear indication of a serpent, although what seems to be an only very lightly indicated creature appears crouching between Adam\u2019s hanging arm and the Virgin\u2019s covered legs.\u00a0 Most of the tree in the Uffizi drawing is missing from the Louvre drawing, as are also the figures of Diana and Apollo.<\/p>\n

The drawing appears to be a copy of a lost drawing by Rosso for the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception<\/em> planned for S. Maria delle Lagrime in Arezzo.\u00a0 It could be thought that the copy crops Rosso\u2019s composition, hence the absence of Diana and Apollo.\u00a0 But I am inclined to believe that this is not the case and that the copy is complete, except possibly for an area cut from the top, and that the composition is an early version of Rosso\u2019s composition.\u00a0 This is primarily indicated by the pose of Eve, which is very confined with the left arm held against her torso.\u00a0 The body is bent forward to the right with the head facing down.\u00a0 In the Uffizi drawing, Eve\u2019s body and head are turned in response to the large figures of Diana and Apollo, and Eve\u2019s raised left arm is linked compositionally to Diana\u2019s downwardly extended left arm.\u00a0 The differences of Eve\u2019s pose in the other drawing are compositionally dependent upon the addition of the figures of Diana and Apollo high up and to the right.<\/p>\n

This seeming to be the case, the position of the Virgin in the Louvre copy marks the right limit of the scene, making it narrower than the one in the Uffizi drawing.\u00a0 This would mean that the composition of the Louvre copy was not planned for the same half-lunette that was to receive the other composition with five full figures.\u00a0 The half-lunettes of the fa\u00e7ade wall of S. Maria delle Lagrime are narrower than those at the north and south of the central bay of the atrium that is the site of Rosso\u2019s project.\u00a0 Hence, the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception<\/em> known from the copy in the Louvre, would, with its curved edge at the left, have been planned for the area to the left of the window in the fa\u00e7ade wall.\u00a0 The fall of the light in the Louvre drawing is from the direction of this window.\u00a0 The subject of Rosso\u2019s scene can be seen as meaningful next to Marcillat\u2019s window of the Annunciation<\/em>.\u00a0 It is not known what subject would have been planned for the half-lunette to its right.<\/p>\n

The composition that Vasari described, and which, he said, reached the stage of a cartoon, is represented by the larger scene in Florence.\u00a0 Consequently, the composition of the Louvre copy would most likely have preceded the other, indicating with the latter a change of plan of the overall scheme of the project.\u00a0 It is possible that originally Soggi\u2019s already existing Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl<\/em> was to be destroyed, although what would have replaced it and what would have been in the lunette to its left are not known.\u00a0 Then it was decided to keep Soggi\u2019s fresco and reassign the Allegory of the Immaculate Conception<\/em> to the space to its left even if this location was iconographically not quite so appropriate.<\/p>\n

The emphatic influence of Michelangelo\u2019s style in this copy, and in particular of what Michelangelo had very recently invented for the Medici Chapel, points to the lost original drawing having been invented shortly after Rosso received the Lagrime commission on 24 November 1528 and shortly after a trip to Florence that he took after completing the Borgo Sansepolcro Piet\u00e0<\/em> and before beginning work on the Christ in Glory<\/em> in Citt\u00e0 di Castello. \u00a0The original lost drawing should probably be dated 1528-1529, at the beginning of his work on the Lagrime project (see also D.32<\/a>).<\/p>\n

It might be argued that the Louvre copy is incomplete and what would have filled the top of it and an area behind the Virgin is simply missing.\u00a0 But the top of the scene was probably empty, as is the case in Rosso\u2019s Throne of Solomon<\/em> (Fig.D.34<\/a>), also made for this project.\u00a0 Furthermore, the pose and placement of the Virgin appear more fitting to the narrower composition than to the other, where, in retrospect, it may be possible to see that additions have been made at the top and right to enlarge it.\u00a0 It is in the added areas that the composition received, in the figures of Diana and Apollo, the iconographical details, from the \u201cbello ingegno di M. Giovan Pollastra,\u201d that appear so extraordinary.<\/p>\n

The copy in the Louvre seems to be by the same hand as the pen and ink copy, also in the Louvre and also assigned by Hercenberg to the shop of Vleughels, of Rosso\u2019s Throne of Solomon<\/em> (see under D.34<\/a>).\u00a0 That copy also cuts off the top of Rosso\u2019s composition where, however, as stated above, nothing appears.\u00a0 Like that copy on transparent paper, the copy of the lost Allegory of the Immaculate Conception<\/em> could have been traced from Rosso\u2019s drawing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For an Unexecuted Fresco at S. Maria delle Lagrime, Arezzo 1528-1529 Paris, Louvre, Inv. 34939. Fig.D.31 Red chalk on transparent yellow paper (papier huil\u00e9), 21.6 x 18.8, laid down; wm., see Hercenberg below. PROVENANCE: Comte d\u2019Orsay (Lugt 2239, pseudo Robert Strange, on which see Hercenberg, 1975, 140, 144). LITERATURE: Hercenberg, 1975, 164-165, no. 365, Pl.CXXXXII, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":34,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2185","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2185"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6394,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2185\/revisions\/6394"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}