Old Master & British Works on Paper
Old Master & British Works on Paper
Drawings from the Collection of Carlos Alberto Cruz
Bartolomeo Torri
Two double-sided sheets of écorché anatomy studies: A) Recto: Study of a man's head and neck and a separate study of his neck Verso: Profile study of a man's head, neck and upper body B) Recto: Studies of legs Verso: Studies of feet
Lot Closed
July 8, 11:01 AM GMT
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Drawings from the Collection of Carlos Alberto Cruz
Bartolomeo Torri
Arezzo 1527 - 1552
Two double-sided sheets of écorché anatomy studies:
A) Recto: Study of a man's head and neck and a separate study of his neck
Verso: Profile study of a man's head, neck and upper body
B) Recto: Studies of legs
Verso: Studies of feet
Both pen and brown ink and wash (recto & verso), the outlines indented for transfer;
A) bears numbering and inscription in pen and brown ink, recto: No. 11 / mano de bartolomeo aretino. 1554 / dos reales/ N. 17 and verso: No. 12 / de mano de / bartolomeo aretino / 1554;
B) bears numbering and inscription in pen and brown ink, recto: No. 25 / mano de bartolomeo aretino. 1554. and verso: No. 23 / No. 24 /No. 19/ de mano de bartolomeo aretino / 1554. dos reales
A) 370 by 266 mm; B) 405 by 269 mm
(2)
his sale, New York, Sotheby's, The inventory of H. P. Kraus, 4 & 5 December 2003, lot 50,
where purchased by the present owner
These powerful and intensely graphic studies reveal the burgeoning curiosity and interest in anatomy in Rome in the early 1550s. In a tradition originating in Florence (commencing with Leonardo Da Vinci), and ignited within Roman artistic circles, they illustrate the way in which the human body was intricately studied and explored, echoed loudly in the powerful representations of the figure by the great master, Michelangelo.
Torri came to Rome from Arezzo and seems to have concentrated on anatomical studies. Vasari, who may have owned one of his drawings, gives a colourful account of his life, recounting that he shared lodgings with Giulio Clovio, but was evicted 'for no other reason than his filthy anatomy, for he kept so many limbs and pieces of men under his bed and all over his rooms, that they poisoned the whole house.1 Vasari also writes that Torri's fascination with anatomy resulted in his living like a hermit and ruining his health completely, until he became sick and died at the age of twenty-five in his native Arezzo.
Drawings by Torri, all of them écorché studies of human limbs, are in the collections at Princeton, Cleveland, the British Museum, the Uffizi and the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh and in a Private Collection (previously on the art market in New York in 1997).
The outlines of the present drawing and the one in Cleveland have been indented with a blunt stylus, indicating that they were intended for reproduction, probably to be engraved on copper. It has been suggested that their function may have been to illustrate a medical text.
The presence on both of these drawings of a Spanish inscription, including a price, 'dos reales', clearly illustrates that there was an early international market for this type of material and that there was a demand for these anatomical studies in Spain. This is perhaps not surprising, given that dissections were being performed already in the fifteenth century at universities across the country, including Barcelona, Valencia and Zaragoza.
1. G. Vasari, Le vite...., trans. Gaston de Vere, Everyman edition 1996, vol. II, p. 212