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Lot Essay
The attribution of this previously unpublished drawing to Taddeo Zuccaro was confirmed by James Mundy who also dated the work to 1553-56 based upon a digital image. The drawing represents Zuccaro's vigorous first thoughts for figures that would evolve into more highly finished drawings, paintings and frescoes.
Zuccaro's more complete figures have the pen line contours of their bodies augmented with brown wash which adds shading and volume to their forms. This figure in the upper left quadrant is the most complete one on the page and is the one most identifiable with figures in other works. The figure with one arm bent, the other outstretched, seemingly running across the page, is subtly transformed into an antique warrior wrangling a rearing horse in another more highly finished compositional drawing dating from the same period and showing Alexander the Great and Bucephalus at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (E.J. Mundy, Renaissance into Baroque: Italian Master Drawings by the Zuccari, 1550-1600, Milwaukee, 1989, no. 7). Zuccaro has coiled the figure into a weightier stance, with more tension evident in his clenched fists - one holding a sword, another the horse's rein. The light source alternates in the two sheets, coming from the right in the present drawing, and from the left, or from behind the figure in the National Gallery one. The progression from the preliminary figure on the present sheet to the fully realized one in the Washington sheet is a testament to Taddeo's subtle inventiveness.
Also evident in the present drawing are Taddeo's nascent ideas for the arrangement of figures in a larger composition. The grouping of smaller figures on the sheet - executed in pen and ink with Taddeo's distinctive broad, looping lines - are similar to those in his frescoes also from 1553-56 for the Mattei Chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Rome, such as The Betrayal of Christ or Christ shown to the People. The spare indication of fighting men in the upper right quadrant of the sheet is developed into the crowd of men mocking Christ in the background of the fresco, while the reclining figure repeated in several variations on the lower half of the sheet is distilled into the single fallen soldier in the center background of the Mattei Chapel.
We are grateful to James Mundy for confirming the attribution and for additional information about this drawing.
Zuccaro's more complete figures have the pen line contours of their bodies augmented with brown wash which adds shading and volume to their forms. This figure in the upper left quadrant is the most complete one on the page and is the one most identifiable with figures in other works. The figure with one arm bent, the other outstretched, seemingly running across the page, is subtly transformed into an antique warrior wrangling a rearing horse in another more highly finished compositional drawing dating from the same period and showing Alexander the Great and Bucephalus at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (E.J. Mundy, Renaissance into Baroque: Italian Master Drawings by the Zuccari, 1550-1600, Milwaukee, 1989, no. 7). Zuccaro has coiled the figure into a weightier stance, with more tension evident in his clenched fists - one holding a sword, another the horse's rein. The light source alternates in the two sheets, coming from the right in the present drawing, and from the left, or from behind the figure in the National Gallery one. The progression from the preliminary figure on the present sheet to the fully realized one in the Washington sheet is a testament to Taddeo's subtle inventiveness.
Also evident in the present drawing are Taddeo's nascent ideas for the arrangement of figures in a larger composition. The grouping of smaller figures on the sheet - executed in pen and ink with Taddeo's distinctive broad, looping lines - are similar to those in his frescoes also from 1553-56 for the Mattei Chapel in the church of Santa Maria della Consolazione in Rome, such as The Betrayal of Christ or Christ shown to the People. The spare indication of fighting men in the upper right quadrant of the sheet is developed into the crowd of men mocking Christ in the background of the fresco, while the reclining figure repeated in several variations on the lower half of the sheet is distilled into the single fallen soldier in the center background of the Mattei Chapel.
We are grateful to James Mundy for confirming the attribution and for additional information about this drawing.