{"id":2740,"date":"2011-12-14T17:06:35","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T22:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/"},"modified":"2012-12-21T16:14:36","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T21:14:36","slug":"d-82-copy-holy-family-with-st-anne","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/drawings\/d-82-copy-holy-family-with-st-anne\/","title":{"rendered":"D.82 (COPY) Holy Family with St. Anne"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

D.82 (COPY) Holy Family with St. Anne<\/p><\/div>\n

1539 or 1540<\/p>\n

Milan, Museo Civico, no. 796\/1, 6038P (formerly no. 2163).<\/p>\n

Fig.D.82<\/a><\/p>\n

Pen and ink and wash over outlines in black chalk, 31.3 x 27.9; laid down; wm.?\u00a0 Inscribed in ink in the upper right corner: 24<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PROVENANCE: Giovanni Morelli (Lugt 1902).<\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

Gustavo Frizzoni, Collezione di quaranta disegni scelti della raccolta del Senatore Giovanni Morelli<\/em>, Milan, 1886, Pl. XI, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Berenson, 1903, no. 2447, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Kusenberg, 1931, 137, 143, no. 57, 160, under Boyvin, R.-D. 71 Pl. LXXIII, as Rosso, 1530-1540.<\/p>\n

Berenson, 1938, I, 323, II, no. 2447, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Levron, 1941, 74, under no. 164, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Barocchi, 1950, 224, as perhaps a copy after a lost drawing by Rosso.<\/p>\n

Hartt, 1956, 65-66, as Rosso, and as graphically similar to Rosso\u2019s Pandora and Her Box <\/em>and to the Vertumnus and Pomona<\/em> in the Louvre.<\/p>\n

Berenson, 1961, I, 470, Color Pl. LXIII, II, no. 2447, as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1964 (1976), I, Bk. I, 260-261, II, Bk. II, 431-435, D.53, Bk. III, Fig. 132, as a copy of a lost drawing of c. 1538-1540.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1987, 358, under no. 113, and 360, 362, n. 1, under no. 114, as a copy of a late drawing by Rosso.<\/p>\n

Franklin, 1988, 326, under No. 114, as a copy after the anonymous engraving of this composition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Compositionally, the Holy Family with St. Anne<\/em> is closely related to Rosso\u2019s Piet\u00e0<\/em> in Borgo Sansepolcro (Fig.P.19a<\/a>), but even more so to his Piet\u00e0<\/em> in the Louvre (Fig.P.23a<\/a>) and the painting in Los Angeles (Fig.P.24a<\/a>), with their larger forms and broader gestures.\u00a0 The Virgin\u2019s face is very similar to that of the woman immediately behind Christ\u2019s legs in the earlier Piet\u00e0<\/em>, while her bonnet looks quite like the one worn by the Virgin in the Dei Altarpiece<\/em> (Fig.P.12c<\/a>) and by the figure of Virtue in the Dream of Hercules<\/em> in the Louvre (Fig.D.78a<\/a>), which is more clearly visible in Boyvin\u2019s engraving of this composition (Fig.E.17<\/a>).\u00a0 Joseph\u2019s profile is close to that of the man at the foot of Christ in the Sansepolcro altarpiece and St. Anne very much resembles her counterpart in the Los Angeles painting.\u00a0 There can be no doubt that the invention of the Holy Family with St. Anne<\/em> is Rosso\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The draughtsmanship of the Holy Family <\/em>is similar to that of Rosso\u2019s Pandora and Her Box<\/em> of around 1536 (Fig.D.67a<\/a>).\u00a0 In both, the surfaces of the figures and of the draperies are broken up into patches of light and shade.\u00a0 The washes are applied in several layers, creating a rich variety of shadows that, by contrast, increases the brilliance of the pure, even highlights.\u00a0 Pen lines are restricted to the delineation of contours.\u00a0 The short, hooked lines that mark the creases in the draperies in the Milan drawing are also found in the Pandora and Her Box<\/em>.\u00a0 But the Holy Family<\/em> is somewhat more freely drawn.\u00a0 There is a kind of looseness in its penmanship and a fluidity in the application of its washes that is not quite what appears in the Pandora<\/em> drawing.\u00a0 However, in these respects, the handling of the Milan drawing comes very close to that of Rosso\u2019s Design for a Tomb<\/em> of 1539 or 1540 (Fig.D.81a<\/a>).\u00a0 The largeness of the forms in both these drawings also relates them, suggesting that they were done about the same time.\u00a0 Both are also similar to the Reclining Nude Woman<\/em> (Fig.D.79a<\/a>), also of 1539 or 1540, it would seem, although that drawing is done in red chalk.\u00a0 Iconographically, the Holy Family with St. Anne<\/em> bears a partial relationship with the picture in Los Angeles, done probably in 1540.<\/p>\n

But close as the draughtsmanship of the Milan drawing is to that of the Design for a Tomb<\/em>, a comparison of them strongly suggests that the former is not autograph but rather a good copy of a lost original drawing.\u00a0 The pen lines waver too indecisively and tend to wander along the edges of forms rather than enclose them.\u00a0 The washes are somewhat clumsily applied and tend to confuse forms rather than project them.\u00a0 Nothing quite so vague in its intentions appears in the Design for a Tomb<\/em>.\u00a0 Therefore, it is likely that the Milan drawing is a copy of a drawing by Rosso, the original having been done in 1539 or 1540.<\/p>\n

Franklin\u2019s belief that the drawing is merely a copy of the anonymous engraving of this composition is not supported by a comparison of the two.\u00a0 In the print, the head of Anne overlaps the Virgin\u2019s, as it does in the chiaroscuro woodcut of this scene (Fig.E.101, II<\/a>), a detail that would seem to have been an aspect of the lost original drawing.\u00a0 Furthermore, in the Milan drawing there is a faint indication at the lower left of the ledge at the bottom of the composition.\u00a0 This does not appear in the engraving.\u00a0 One should add that it seems most unlikely that the draughtsman of the Milan drawing should produce so much the appearance of Rosso\u2019s wash drawings by copying an engraving that would not suggest the use of such draughtsmanship.<\/p>\n

PRINTS: Anonymous, E.16 (Fig.E.16<\/a>).\u00a0 Engraving in the same direction as the Milan drawing, and slightly smaller.\u00a0 Probably made from Rosso\u2019s lost drawing and may copy some of its details, such as the hair of the Child and of St. Joseph, more carefully than does the Milan drawing; the piece of fruit held by St. Joseph is also clearer in the engraving and resembles a pear.\u00a0 The left side of St. Anne is much more clearly described than in the drawing and shows her sagging left breast, an indication that the Milan drawing is, in fact, a copy, because it shows this detail so uncertainly.<\/p>\n

Master NDB, E.101 (Fig.E.101, II<\/a>).\u00a0 Chiaroscuro woodcut in reverse of the Milan drawing and without the drapery behind Joseph; the back of St. Anne is also slightly cut off.\u00a0 The far side of the latter figure is unclearly described.\u00a0 Possibly made from Rosso\u2019s lost drawing but certainly not from the Milan copy.\u00a0 In several details, the woodcut is closer to the engraving (see above) than to the drawing in Milan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1539 or 1540 Milan, Museo Civico, no. 796\/1, 6038P (formerly no. 2163). Fig.D.82 Pen and ink and wash over outlines in black chalk, 31.3 x 27.9; laid down; wm.?\u00a0 Inscribed in ink in the upper right corner: 24. PROVENANCE: Giovanni Morelli (Lugt 1902). LITERATURE: Gustavo Frizzoni, Collezione di quaranta disegni scelti della raccolta del Senatore […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":87,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2740","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2740","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=2740"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3309,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2740\/revisions\/3309"}],"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=2740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}