Baccio Bandinelli

With Crispian Riley-Smith, London, by whom sold in 2000 to
Jeffrey E. Horvitz (bears his mark, verso, not in Lugt),
his sale, New York, Sotheby's, 23 January 2008, lot 32

Window mounted on acid free paper which in turn has been hinged onto a modern mount. Generally in good condition. A number of light grey stains at the top and bottom of the sheet. Some surface dirt, although the chalk is still quite fresh. Sold in a modern frame.
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This study offers fascinating insight into the technique and style of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli during his early career. It is a copy after the figures on the left side of Fra Bartolommeo's unfinished Pala della Signoria, now in the Museo di San Marco, Florence, but commissioned in 1510 for the chapel of the Consiglio, in Palazzo Vecchio. Though compositionally complete, the altarpiece was never worked up in colours, and remains today in its preliminary, monochrome form. The pala was among the paintings that remained with Fra Bartolommeo in the Convent of San Marco after the dissolution of his partnership with Mariotto Albertinelli. In 1517, however, it was transferred to the church of San Lorenzo, and remained there until 1723 when it was integrated into the Medici collection formed by the Gran Principe Ferdinando. The only significant difference between the drawing and the corresponding section of the painting is the figure in the immediate foreground of the drawing, who appears seated rather than kneeling, and with a spirited, young face. 

Paul Joannides was the first to attribute this study to Baccio Bandinelli, an attribution later confirmed by Roger Ward when he saw the drawing in the original.  In a letter to the previous owner, Dr. Joannides wrote: 'The application of the red chalk in granular planes juxtaposed without linear boundaries was a technique brought to a high level of accomplishment during the second decade...'. He also stressed that although Bandinelli's activities as a copyist are under-researched, he was clearly assiduous in his studies of both old and new, emphasising that the work of Fra Bartolommeo would have been among Bandinelli's subjects, as he was one of his generation's greatest exponents of grandiose drapery form. Furthermore, the unfinished, monochrome state of the Pala della Signoria made it an ideal source from which to study, particularly for a sculptor.  

Joannides has also argued that the very faint offset on the verso - a figure bending forward pressing downwards with a long pole - may have come from a lost study for the figure of a torturer in a martyrdom of St Lawrence.  He stresses, however, that it is not related to the fresco of the same subject, planned by Bandinelli circa 1525 for the choir of San Lorenzo, but never executed. (The composition that the artist devised for this project is known from a near-contemporary engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi.¹)  In fact, as Joannides has noted, this offset is remarkably close to a figure in Michelangelo's Martyrdom of St Lawrence, a relief executed for the façade of San Lorenzo, and known from the large modello of 1516, now in Casa Buonarroti, Florence.²  Fascinatingly, Michelangelo actually recruited Baccio Bandinelli to work with him on the façade, and since the Pala della Signoriawas transferred to the church of San Lorenzo in 1517, it seems very possible that Bandinelli drew his copy at about this time.

Other examples of stylistically comparable drawings by Bandinelli are in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg (inv.no.21465), in the British Museum (inv.no. 1885-5-9-35), and in the Royal Library, Turin.³

1. The Illustrated Bartsch, 26, 14 p. 135, 104-1(89)

2. Michael Hirst, Michelangelo and His Drawings, New Haven & London 1988, pl. 169 and detail reproduced fig. 87

3. See respectively: Roger Ward, Baccio Bandinelli, exhibition catalogue, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1988, under no. 22 reproduced p. 143, fig. 12; Idem, no. 17, reproduced p. 101; and G.C. Sciolla, From Leonardo to Rembrandt, Turin, 1990, no. 27, reproduced