BACCIO BANDINELLI | Recto: Two studies of a standing man Verso: Study of a bull

Acquis à Lyon, commerce d'art, 1979

Rennes, 2012, n°2 (notice par Françoise Viatte)

F. Viatte, Musée du Louvre, départment des Arts graphiques. Inventaire général des dessins italiens, t. IX, Baccio Bandinelli, dessins, sculptures, peinture, Paris, 2011, p.126, sous n°20

Window mounted.  Some light staining around the edges of the sheet on the recto and some scattered brown stains.  Some surface dirt.  Some discolouration on the verso due to previous mounting.  Pen and ink remains strong and vibrant  and the red chalk is still fairly strong on the verso. Sold unframed.
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‘The strength of Bandinelli’s draftsmanship is based above all on his formidable mastery of pen and ink using an extensive network of crosshatching – the technique of a sculptor rather than a painter and one at which he was so skilled that it also made him one of the most important designers of prints in the sixteenth century.’¹ This statement by Catherine Monbeig Goguel aptly describes this grand, large scale sheet by Baccio Bandinelli, in which his mastery of pen and ink is superbly manifested. Described by Françoise Viatte, in the Rennes exhibition catalogue, as two studies of the same figure, the bold use of line and contouring of muscles using a highly structured system of crosshatching reflect the artist’s main activity as a sculptor.

Bandinelli executed a number of studies of standing male nudes and figures in movement throughout his career which, as Françoise Viatte remarks, makes this type of drawing difficult to date. The verso of the drawing reveals a study of a bull in red chalk; this study is seemingly unconnected to the recto, but it was not unusual for artists to re-use paper in this fashion. There are a number of other bovine studies by Bandinelli in the Louvre² and in Vasari’s Vite we are informed that the young Bandinelli practised drawing animals when he was at his father’s farm at Pizzi di Monte, in the hills above Prato.

Françoise Viatte, in the Rennes exhibition catalogue, draws our attention to a number of other studies of male nudes in the Louvre’s collection. The group in the Louvre are catalogued as ‘Workshop of Bandinelli’ but what they reveal, whether autograph or executed by pupils in the workshop, is the fact that drawings of this type were being made very frequently, using similar models or prototypes. The Louvre drawing of Two Standing Male Nudes is not dissimilar to the Adrien sheet in its treatment of lines and hatching and in the nudes that are represented, with arms cut off.³ It was commonplace in the early Renaissance to draw inspiration from the Antique, and whilst Françoise Viatte does not think the present studies are necessarily after antique models, she does suggest that Bandinelli and his pupils may have studied a small plaster cast of a figure without arms, like the one illustrated in Enea Vico’s engraving, The Academy of Baccio Bandinelli (fig. 1). Viatte also points out that the sculptures by Bandinelli, commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de Medici for the Villa Madama, were also of figures without arms.

The Adrien sheet is a strong example of Bandinelli’s distinctive technique in pen and ink. It reveals the practices of an early Renaissance artist but first and foremost it reveals the traits of a sculptor. As Viatte remarks in her Rennes catalogue entry, ‘il ne cherche pas à plaire, mais s’emploie à rendre compte de l’espace, du plan sur lequel les corps se détachent, de leur volume, du rendu de la lumière.’<sup>4

1.</sup> C. Monbeig Goguel, ‘Workshop Continuity through the Generations: Bandinelli versus Francesco Salviati’, Master Drawings, vol XLIII, no. 3, 2005, p. 316
^2. F. Viatte, Museé du Louvre. Inventaire Général des Dessins Italiens Tome IX: Baccio Bandinelli. Dessins, Sculptures, Peinture, Paris 2011, nos. 20-23
^3. Viatte, op. cit., pp. 205-206, no. 86
^4. Rennes 2012, p. 30