{"id":2746,"date":"2011-12-14T17:09:01","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T22:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/rosso\/"},"modified":"2014-04-22T16:34:31","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T20:34:31","slug":"d-84-judith-and-holofernes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/catalogues\/drawings\/d-84-judith-and-holofernes\/","title":{"rendered":"D.84 Judith and Holofernes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

D.84 Judith and Holofernes<\/p><\/div>\n

1540<\/p>\n

Los Angeles, County Museum of Art, no. M.77.13.<\/p>\n

Fig.D.84a<\/a>
\nFig.D.84b<\/a> bw<\/p>\n

Red chalk over traces of black chalk, 23.2 x 19.7; slightly irregularly cut along the right edge; this side of the drawing has probably been cut away by several centimeters, removing much of the maid\u2019s left leg and foot, the very tip of which can be seen in the lower right corner.\u00a0 Inscribed in pencil in the lower left corner: Rosa<\/em>.\u00a0 The face of the old woman is badly rubbed.\u00a0 There are faint pen lines along the inner side of Judith\u2019s right leg and the outer side of her left leg similar to the pen lines at the edges of the sheet, wm.?<\/p>\n

PROVENANCE: Dutch collection1<\/sup><\/a>; Eug\u00e8ne Rodrigues (Lugt 897); London, David Carritt.<\/p>\n

LITERATURE:<\/p>\n

\u201cLa Chronique des Arts,\u201d GdBA<\/em>, 6th period, XCI, 1978, Suppl\u00e9ment, no. 1310, 42, Fig. 190, as Rosso, c. 1527.<\/p>\n

Carroll, 1978, cover, Fig., 25, 28, 34, 36, 39, 40, 42, 45, as Rosso, and done around 1538-1540.<\/p>\n

Olszewski, 1981, 26, 50-51, no. 26, Fig., as Rosso.<\/p>\n

Bialostocki, 1981, 215.<\/p>\n

Ebria Feinblatt, \u201cCriteria for Building a Public Graphic Art Collection,\u201d The Journal of the Theory and Criticism of the Visual Arts<\/em>, Tempe, Arizona, I, 1981, 84, Fig.<\/p>\n

Davis, 1984, 18, 19, Fig., 64, no. 67.<\/p>\n

K. Wilson-Chevalier, in Fontainebleau<\/em>, 1985, 169, under no. 112, as Rosso.\u00a0 Carroll, 1987, 11, 31, 364-366, no. 116, with Color Pl., as Rosso, 1540.<\/p>\n

Rosand, 1988, 31, Fig., 32.<\/p>\n

Miller, 1992, 112.<\/p>\n

Scalli\u00e9rez, 1992, 17, 18, Fig. 11, as possibly related to Rosso\u2019s lost painting of Judith<\/em> once at Fontainebleau.\u00a0 Franklin, 1994, 82, 83, Pl. 60, as Rosso, 1519-1520.<\/p>\n

Brugerolles and Guillet, 1994, 40, under no. 15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The young woman and the old hag in this drawing are very closely related to many in Rosso\u2019s works, including especially several scenes in the Gallery of Francis I: the Loss of Perpetual Youth<\/em> (Fig.P.22, II S a<\/a>), the Twins of Catania<\/em> (Fig.P.22, V N a<\/a>), the Cleobis and Biton<\/em> (Fig.P.22, V S a<\/a>), and the Venus and Minerva<\/em> (Fig.P.22, I N b<\/a>).\u00a0 With one young woman facing an old one and a third figure, a male nude stretched out horizontal but also at a slight angle to the picture plane, the Judith and Holofernes<\/em> is compositionally most similar to Rosso\u2019s painting in Los Angeles (Fig.P.24a<\/a>), probably done in 1540.\u00a0 The draughtsmanship of this drawing is comparable to that of a number of red chalk drawings by Rosso, including the Standing Nude Woman<\/em>, in the Uffizi (Fig.D.5<\/a>), the Virt\u00f9 Vanquishing Fortune<\/em>, in Darmstadt (Fig.D.6a<\/a>), and the St. Roch Distributing His Inheritance to the Poor<\/em>, in the Louvre (Fig.D.13<\/a>).\u00a0 But it most closely resembles, in the quality of its contours and the texture of its shading, the handling of Rosso\u2019s Empedocles-St. Roch<\/em>, executed, it would seem, in 1539 or 1540 (Fig.D.80a<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Stylistically and graphically, the Judith and Holofernes<\/em> is closest to those works by Rosso that appear to have been done very late in his life: the Empedocles-St. Roch<\/em> and especially the painting in Los Angeles.\u00a0 There is a grandness but also a peculiar urgency about the confrontation of the two women in the drawing that is very much like what appears between the Virgin and Gabriel in the D\u00fcsseldorf Annunciation<\/em> (Fig.D.83<\/a>).\u00a0 It is, therefore, very likely that all three of these works were done about the same time.\u00a0 Given their resemblance to each other, which is closer than their relation to any other works by Rosso, it is probable that these two drawings and the Los Angeles painting were done at the very end of Rosso\u2019s life, and very possibly within the last year of his life.\u00a0 The multiple layers of meaning that the drawing conveys differentiate it from the works that he did in Italy, including the Virt\u00f9 Vanquishing Fortune<\/em> in Darmstadt (Fig.D.6a<\/a>).2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

The drawing cannot be related to Rosso\u2019s lost painting at Fontainebleau (L.35<\/a>), as suggested by Scalli\u00e9rez, because Cassiano dal Pozzo described it as showing Judith clothed.<\/p>\n

COPY, DRAWING: Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, no. 7291 (Fig.D.84 Copy, Madrid<\/a>).\u00a0 Red chalk, 22.2 x 17.1; a hole at the upper left, and slightly stained here and there; laid down.\u00a0 Inscribed in ink on the mount at the lower left: A. Caracci<\/em>, and at the upper right: 30ng<\/em>.\u00a0 LITERATURE: Angel Barcia, Catalogo de los Dibujos de la Biblioteca Nacional<\/em>, Madrid, 1906, 497-498, no. 7291, as Annibale Caracci.\u00a0 Carroll, 1987, 366, n. 5, under no. 216.\u00a0 Scalli\u00e9rez, 1992, 17, n. 48.<\/p>\n

This drawing is a rather slick but faithful copy of Rosso\u2019s drawing, with the forms slightly broader and more rounded and the whole image somewhat vulgarized by such changes as the more conventional prettiness of Judith\u2019s face and the enlargement of her nipples and those of the maid.\u00a0 The figure of the maid is cut off just to the left of her left elbow.<\/p>\n

This drawing was kindly brought to my attention by H. Th. Colenbrander.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

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<\/a>1<\/sup> There is a long paragraph in Dutch on the old mount stating that the drawing was done in 1576 by Cristofano or Stefano Rosa of Brescia, an attribution that is probably dependent on the inscription on the drawing itself, which, though it reads Rosa, may record imprecisely an earlier attribution of this drawing to Rosso.\u00a0 I should like to thank Susan Donahue Kuretsky for translating this paragraph for me.\u00a0 The back of the mount has an illegible name scribbled in pencil.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/a>2<\/sup> The placement of the small illustration of the Judith and Holofernes<\/em> alongside that of Rosso\u2019s small Virt\u00f9 Vanquishing Fortune<\/em> in Franklin\u2019s book of 1994 (83, Pls. 60, 61) supports the attribution of the two drawings to Rosso but more importantly it seems to have been so arranged to support an argument for their identical dates.\u00a0 However, the Los Angeles drawing (23.2 x 19.7 cm.) is considerably larger than the Darmstadt sheet (14 x 20.7 cm) and its two major figures extend its full height and its width.\u00a0 Quite otherwise, the three figures in the other drawing are not only actually smaller but are placed within a significantly larger space, actually and illusionistically.\u00a0 Thus it is that the manipulation of the sizes of the drawings in relation to each other not only misrepresents their actual differences but also the grandness of one composition against the greater intimacy of the other.\u00a0 It is the grandness of the Los Angeles composition that so emphatically indicates that it is a much later work by the artist.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1540 Los Angeles, County Museum of Art, no. M.77.13. Fig.D.84a Fig.D.84b bw Red chalk over traces of black chalk, 23.2 x 19.7; slightly irregularly cut along the right edge; this side of the drawing has probably been cut away by several centimeters, removing much of the maid\u2019s left leg and foot, the very tip of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"parent":820,"menu_order":89,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2746","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2746","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=2746"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10567,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/rosso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2746\/revisions\/10567"}],"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=2746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}