{"id":2662,"date":"2011-12-14T16:44:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T20:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/"},"modified":"2013-01-29T13:02:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-29T18:02:28","slug":"d-68-seated-male-nude","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/drawings\/d-68-seated-male-nude\/","title":{"rendered":"D.68 Seated Male Nude"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

D.68 Seated Male Nude<\/p><\/div>\n

c. 1536<\/p>\n

London, British Museum, no. 1946-7-13-513.<\/p>\n

Fig.D.68a<\/a>
\nFig.D.68b<\/a> bw<\/p>\n

Red chalk, 36 x 21.3, including a strip along the irregularly torn left edge of the sheet upon which is drawn a small part of the back of the figure; a tear at the left, repaired; stained here and there, especially at the edges and along a crease near the bottom; wm?.\u00a0 Inscribed in pencil at the lower left: 1446<\/em>, and on the verso<\/em>: 25\/2<\/em> (see Woodburn sale below).<\/p>\n

PROVENANCE: Sir Thomas Lawrence (Lugt 2445); unidentified collector\u2019s mark at upper right; S. Woodburn sale, Christie\u2019s, 4 June 1860, lot 25 (12); Sir Thomas Phillips to his grandson T. Fitzroy Phillips Fenwick (see Popham, below).\u00a0 See B\u00e9guin below on reference to F. Fitz Roy Collection.<\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

Popham, 1935, 34, no. 4, gives Friedrich Antal\u2019s attribution to Boscoli.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1964 (1976), I, Bk. I, 254-257, II, Bk. II, 419-422, D.50, Bk. III, Fig. 129, as Rosso, around 1536-1538.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1966, 172, Fig. 8, 176, as Rosso, between c. 1536 and c. 1538.<\/p>\n

B\u00e9guin, in EdF<\/em>, 1972, 180, Fig., 183, under no. 205, no. 206, as Rosso, from his French period and related to his Narcissus<\/em>, to his Piet\u00e0 <\/em>in the Louvre, and to his Leda<\/em> in London; she mentions the mark of F. Fitz Roy at lower left.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1978, 25, 27, Fig. 6, as Rosso, c. 1536-1538.<\/p>\n

Turner, 1986, 148, no. 106, as Rosso, of unspecified date.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1987, 304-306, no. 97, with Fig., as Rosso, c. 1536.<\/p>\n

Franklin, 1988, 326, no. 97, believes it dates from the mid-1520s.<\/p>\n

Miller, 1992, 112, found it difficult to accept my dating of the drawing ca. 1536.<\/p>\n

Joukovsky, 1992, 56, n. 3, mentioned the influence of Michelangelo as remarked by Carroll.<\/p>\n

Franklin, 1994, 133, Pl. 96, 283, n. 50, as Rosso, Michelangelesque, and Roman in date, not French.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The attribution of this drawing to Rosso, first made by Popham after the drawing entered the British Museum in 1946, is supported by the draughtsmanship of the drawing and by the image of the nude.\u00a0 Calculated above all else to describe every nuance of light and shade reflected and cast by the undulating surface of this bulky, muscular nude, the draughtsmanship of this drawing closely resembles the handling of such drawings as Rosso\u2019s study (Fig.D.7<\/a>) for the figure of St. Sebastian in the Dei Altarpiece of 1522, the Seated Male Nude <\/em>of around 1523, in the Uffizi (Fig.D.9<\/a>), the Nude with a Standard<\/em> of around 1524, also in the Uffizi (Fig.D.12<\/a>), and the four Gods in Niches <\/em>done in 1526: Pluto<\/em> (Fig.D.17A<\/a>), Proserpina<\/em> (Fig.D.17B<\/a>), Mars<\/em> (Fig.D.17C<\/a>), and Bacchus<\/em> (Fig.D18a<\/a>).\u00a0 The claim of Rosso\u2019s authorship of the drawing is strengthened by the recognition that the type of heavy figure represented here is found elsewhere, and not infrequently, in Rosso\u2019s works.\u00a0 The representations of Adam in the frescoes in S. Maria della Pace (Fig.P.17a<\/a>), the figure of Christ in the Boston Dead Christ <\/em>(Fig.P.18a<\/a>), and the saint in the St. Roch Distributing His Inheritance to the Poor<\/em> (Fig.D.13<\/a>), all Roman works by Rosso, are quite similar to the figure in the London drawing.\u00a0 Furthermore, the posture of the figure is almost identical, though in reverse, to Rosso\u2019s Seated Male Nude<\/em> of around 1523 (Fig.D.9<\/a>).\u00a0 The interlocked legs are also similar to those in the Boston picture.<\/p>\n

Although the drawing is most easily demonstrated as a work by Rosso with the stylistic evidence supplied by material that survives largely from his Roman period, it does not seem to have been done then, as Franklin thought.\u00a0 Graphically, the draughtsmanship of this study, fine as it is, lacks the particular incisive quality of even the more softly drawn Roman works, such as the original St. Roch drawing in the Louvre, and the Gods in Niches<\/em> mentioned above.\u00a0 The contrast is even greater between the handling of the British Museum drawing and the sharp draughtsmanship of the Roman Seated Woman in a Niche<\/em> (Fig.D.11<\/a>) and the Standing Bearded Nude<\/em> (Fig.D.16<\/a>), both in the Uffizi.\u00a0 Furthermore, the extraordinarily bulky Seated Male Nude<\/em> is, as a figure-type, not specifically related to the large, but tightly muscular, figures of Rosso\u2019s Roman period, including those of the Cesi Chapel frescoes (Fig.P.17a<\/a>) and of the drawing for Eve (Fig.D.10<\/a>) made for one of these paintings, which shows quite a different draughtsmanship.<\/p>\n

Although this drawing has, figuratively, almost nothing in common with Rosso\u2019s Madonna della Misericordia<\/em> of 1529 (Fig.D.35a<\/a>), the extremely delicate shading and the very thin, hair like contours of that drawing are very similar to those in the London drawing, suggesting that the latter may date rather late in Rosso\u2019s career.\u00a0 It is, in fact, among the decorations of the Gallery of Francis I that we find several figures to which the Seated Male Nude<\/em> is more closely related than to any other of Rosso\u2019s male nudes.\u00a0 The giants painted at either side of the Education of Achilles<\/em> (Fig.P.22, II N b<\/a> and Fig.P.22, II N c<\/a>) and the crouching nude depicted in the lower right corner of the wall with the Death of Adonis<\/em> (Fig.P.22, III S c<\/a>) are extremely similar to the nude figure in London.\u00a0 All of these figures have the same broad torsos, bulky chests, and thickset limbs.\u00a0 The face of the Seated Male Nude<\/em> closely resembles that of the Michelangelesque giant at the right of the Education of Achilles<\/em>.\u00a0 As the flanking nudes of that wall and the entire decoration of the Death of Adonis<\/em> wall would seem to have been designed between August and November 1536, the London drawing that is stylistically comparable to these parts of the gallery would appear to have been done around the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

c. 1536 London, British Museum, no. 1946-7-13-513. Fig.D.68a Fig.D.68b bw Red chalk, 36 x 21.3, including a strip along the irregularly torn left edge of the sheet upon which is drawn a small part of the back of the figure; a tear at the left, repaired; stained here and there, especially at the edges and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":72,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2662","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2662","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=2662"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8209,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2662\/revisions\/8209"}],"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=2662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}