{"id":2571,"date":"2011-12-13T17:59:07","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T21:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/"},"modified":"2013-05-31T10:59:57","modified_gmt":"2013-05-31T14:59:57","slug":"d-53-copy-the-education-of-achilles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/drawings\/d-53-copy-the-education-of-achilles\/","title":{"rendered":"D.53 (COPY) Education of Achilles"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

D.53 (COPY) Education of Achilles<\/p><\/div>\n

For the Gallery of Francis I, Fontainebleau<\/strong><\/p>\n

c. 1531\/1532-1534<\/p>\n

Paris, Ensba, no. 386 (formerly 2842).<\/p>\n

Fig.D.53<\/a><\/p>\n

Pen and ink and wash, 32.2 x 44.8 (oval); laid down on a Mariette mount, wm?.\u00a0 Creased twice down the center.\u00a0 Inscribed in ink on the mount: Rubeus Fior<\/em>. [in a cartouche] and Educationem Achillis, Francesco I. jubente, in porticu Regiae Fontisbellaguei depicturus, delineabat.,<\/em> and on the verso<\/em> of the mount (from Brugerolles and Guillet, 1994, see below): Udney\u2019s date 1803<\/em>; Esdaile mark; p.88, no<\/sup><\/span> 101; formerly in Mariette\u2019s coll.on<\/sup> Rosso; (Fiorentino) n\u00e9 vers la fin du XVe<\/sup> si\u00e8cle; coll. P. J. Mariette<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PROVENANCE: P. J. Mariette (Lugt 1852); E. Lelli?\u00a0 (Lugt 2852, Suppl\u00e9ment<\/em>); Robert Udny (Lugt 2248); E. Esdaile (Lugt 2617, preceded by the designation: IOX<\/em>); A. Ch. H. His del la Salle (Lugt 1332 or 1333); bequeathed to the \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts in 1878.<\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

Mariette, letter of 24 May 1760, Paris, to Giovanni Bottari, in Rome (Giovanni Bottari, Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura scultura ed architettura<\/em>, Rome, IV, 1764, 363-364, and IV, 1822, 533, letter no. CCXXIII) stated that he acquired the drawing that day, and considered it as Rosso\u2019s for his picture in the Gallery of Francis I, the subject being the centaur Chiron instructing Achilles.<\/p>\n

Bassan (Mariette sale), 1775, under no. 677, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

M\u00fcntz, 1889, 173, as Rosso, for his painting at Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n

Eug\u00e8ne M\u00fcntz, \u201cLe Mus\u00e9e de \u00c9cole des Beaux-Arts, IV, Les dessins de ma\u00eetres,\u201d GdB-A<\/em>, 3rd period, V, 1, 1891, 46, as Rosso, as a study for his Fontainebleau fresco.<\/p>\n

Herbet, V, 1902 (1969, 233), under no. 37, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Dimier, 1904, 78, and Pl., as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Dimier, 1905, 20, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Notice<\/em>, Fontainebleau, 1921, no. 125, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Kauffman, 1923, 196, Fig. 7, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Dimier, Histoire<\/em>, 1925, 50, Pl. XXXIV, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Dimier, 1928, 9, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Kusenberg, 1931, 87, 137, 144, no. 61, Pl. LII, as Rosso, 1530-1536, for his fresco at Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n

Kusenberg, ZfBK<\/em>, 1931-1932, 86-87, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Art italien<\/em>, 1935, no. 131, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Hans Kauffman, Donatello<\/em>, Berlin, 1936, 216, n. 189, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Berenson, 1938, no. 2458A, as Rosso\u2019s study for his fresco at Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n

Paul S. Wingert, \u201cThe Funerary Urn of Francis I,\u201d AB<\/em>, XXI, 1939, 388, n. 31, as Rosso, for his Fontainebleau picture.<\/p>\n

Kusenberg, 1939, 41, as a copy by L\u00e9onard Thiry of Rosso\u2019s fresco at Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n

Dimier, 1942, 22, 87, and Pl. 50, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Barocchi, 1950, 108, Fig. 96, as Thiry after Rosso\u2019s fresco.<\/p>\n

Bologna and Causa, 1952, 61, as Thiry and related to Rosso\u2019s fresco.<\/p>\n

Triomphe du Mani\u00e8risme<\/em>, 1955, 145, no. 258, as Thiry after Rosso\u2019s fresco.<\/p>\n

Janson, 1957, II, 129, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Panofsky, 1958, 161, Fig. 46, 174, n. 90, as Thiry.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, 1960, 42, as Thiry.<\/p>\n

Berenson, 1961, no. 2458A, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1964 (1976), I, Bk. I, 249-250, II, Bk. II, 391-395, Bk. III, Fig. 122, as a copy of a lost drawing by Rosso of late 1533 or early 1534 for his fresco at Fontainebleau, probably first designed in an oval format.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1966, 173-174, n. 28, as a copy of a lost drawing by Rosso, the oval shape of which may indicate that the lost original drawing was made before any work in the gallery itself was begun.\u00a0 Its shape may also indicate that in a first scheme the large frescoes in the gallery were to alternate oval and rectangular.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, Mariette<\/em>, 1967, under no. 177.<\/p>\n

Berckenhagen, 1968, 11, n. 10, as Thiry.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, EdF<\/em>, 1972, 197, Fig., 198, no. 221, and in Fontainebleau<\/em>, 1973, I, 90, Fig. 61, II, 67, no. 221, as Thiry\u2019s copy of Rosso\u2019s fresco.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin and Pressouyre, 1972, 127, as Thiry, and undoubtedly a copy of a lost first project by Rosso for his fresco at Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n

Miles, 1973, 32, n. 5, as \u201cafter Rosso,\u201d its line too fragmentary and too tentative for Thiry.<\/p>\n

L\u00e9v\u00eaque, 1984, 242, Fig., as Thiry after Rosso\u2019s fresco.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1987, 226, n. 7.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, 1988 (1989), 10, Fig. 3, as by Thiry after Rosso\u2019s fresco.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, 1989, 837, as by Thiry.<\/p>\n

Brugerolles and Guillet, 1994, 92-95, 93, Fig., no. 32, as by Thiry after a drawing by Rosso, the architecture influenced by Donatello\u2019s relief in Lille.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, 1995, 192, as Thiry, who seems to have become a sort of specialist in copying Rosso.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The drawing is discussed as a copy of a lost drawing by Rosso for an early version of his Education of Achilles<\/em> in the Gallery of Francis I in P.22, II N.\u00a0 There it is pointed out how the drawing differs from the fresco in ways that make it clear that the copy was not made from the painting: in the drawing the figure of Achilles is nude in the three scenes at the right, the figures in the swimming and spearing scenes are considerably smaller and the swimming scene is farther to the right, the posts enclosing the terrace at the left are not decorated, there is a man in the doorway at the upper right, the youth standing on the balcony is nude, and some of the figures under the portico seem not to be clothed.\u00a0 The oval shape of the drawing and the relationships of its composition to that format indicate that Rosso originally conceived the fresco of this scene in this shape.\u00a0 An early conception of the gallery\u2019s decorations with some horizontal oval scenes on the north and south walls other than the Nymph of Fontainebleau<\/em>, or the Dana\u00eb <\/em>which eventually found its place in the center of the south wall, must have been planned and then abandoned before the stucco workers began to work in the gallery, probably in 1534.\u00a0 The oval Education of Achilles <\/em>must, consequently, also date from before this moment.\u00a0 As Rosso may have commenced his designs for the gallery as early as c. 1531\/1532, the lost original drawing must date between then and 1534 (see P.22).<\/p>\n

The penmanship of the drawing is too feathery to be Rosso\u2019s but it does imitate his as one sees it in his Pandora and Her Box <\/em>(Fig.D.67a<\/a>) and, somewhat more studied, in his earlier Throne of Solomon <\/em>(Fig.D.34<\/a>).\u00a0 The lost original may have been less freely drawn than the former and yet not quite so precisely executed as the latter, in which case its penmanship may have been closer to that of the Petrarch drawing at Christ Church (Fig.D.47b<\/a>).\u00a0 It is probable that the pen was handled much as one sees it recorded in the copies of the lost drawing of the early version of the Sacrifice<\/em>, especially as seen in the Ensba and Louvre copies (Fig.D.50B<\/a> and Fig.D.50Ca<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The copy is weakest, it would seem, in its reflection of the handling of the washes in the lost original.\u00a0 On the figures, the washes are very indecisively placed, so that a sense of any real form that Rosso\u2019s washes might have conveyed is only vaguely realized.\u00a0 Such lack of purpose is not at all the case in the Pandora<\/em> drawing, where the washes are quite dramatically descriptive of form, or in the Throne of Solomon<\/em>, where they are set down with careful deliberation.\u00a0 This raises the problem of whether the lost original was so simply drawn merely with pen and ink and wash on white paper.\u00a0 As indicated by two of the copies of the lost drawing for the early version of the Sacrifice<\/em>, the copyist of the Education of Achilles <\/em>may have worked from a drawing that also had white highlights and a dark ground.\u00a0 This would account for the penmanship of the copy looking so Rossoesque and the shading not.\u00a0 Instead of reproducing the full technique of Rosso\u2019s drawing, the copyist may have simply copied the pen lines of the original on white paper and then approximated the tonal character of the original with a few insecurely placed washes.\u00a0 Having not begun with a dark ground, he could never achieve the extensive range of values of Rosso\u2019s drawing, the highest tonal level of which would have been created by white highlights.\u00a0 One cannot insist that the copyist worked from a drawing having the appearance of the Albertina Annunciation<\/em> (Fig.D.43a<\/a>) and the Petrarch drawing, but it seems likely that he did.<\/p>\n

The attribution of the Achilles<\/em> drawing to Leonard Thiry, first made by Kusenberg, has been generally accepted, but not by Miles in 1973.\u00a0 The feathery penmanship and vaguely applied washes of the copy do, however, bear a resemblance to those of the Design for a Covered Cup <\/em>signed Leonard Thierry<\/em> in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Fig.RD.22<\/a>).\u00a0 Since the publication of Brugerolles and Guillet on Thiry (1994, 92-128, nos. 32-41, but including other drawings by Thiry as well), our knowledge of this artist as a draughtsman has been significantly enlarged.\u00a0 Beginning as an assistant to Primaticcio and Rosso at Fontainebleau, and the copyist of drawings by the latter, including, in addition to the Education of Achilles<\/em>, the Allegory of Deceit <\/em>(Fig.D.56<\/a>), he developed as a kind of droll pastischer<\/em> of Rosso\u2019s style, supplying designs for engravings generally attributed to Boyvin but that are possibly by Milan (see RE.5<\/a>; RE.6<\/a>; RE.8<\/a>; RE.9<\/a>; RE.11, 1-9<\/a>; RE.13, 1-12<\/a>; RE.14<\/a>).\u00a0 As he seems to have left France around 1545, many of these drawings may have been done specifically for Milan, whose activity as an engraver of Rosso\u2019s designs may have begun before Rosso died in November of 1540 (E.102-105, as Milan, but also those prints after Rosso under Boyvin, E.7-17, which do not carry his initial).\u00a0 Thiry may have stepped in to fill the need for Rossoesque inventions immediately after Rosso\u2019s death.\u00a0 Boyvin first appears on the scene in Paris in 1549, working under Milan, who was still alive in 1554.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the Gallery of Francis I, Fontainebleau c. 1531\/1532-1534 Paris, Ensba, no. 386 (formerly 2842). Fig.D.53 Pen and ink and wash, 32.2 x 44.8 (oval); laid down on a Mariette mount, wm?.\u00a0 Creased twice down the center.\u00a0 Inscribed in ink on the mount: Rubeus Fior. [in a cartouche] and Educationem Achillis, Francesco I. jubente, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":57,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2571","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2571","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=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3114,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2571\/revisions\/3114"}],"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=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}