GIULIO CLOVIO (attributed to)
Grizane, Croatia 1498 - 1578 Rome
After MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
Caprese 1475-1564 Rome
A Bacchanal of Children, circa 1545-50
Dark red chalk used in a silver-point manner, on light tan paper
281 x 405 mm.; 11 x 16 inches
Watermark:
Ladder in a Circle (Roberts watermark Ladder-B)
Provenance:
A. Tardieu (Lugt 183b)
Nicos Dhikeos (with his stamp which is not in Lugt)
Notes:
1. This very complete, vivid, red chalk drawing, in remarkably fine overall condition, is a contemporary copy after Michelangelo’s drawing Bacchanal of Children at Windsor Castle (see: A.E. Popham and Johannes Wilde The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Centuries at Windsor Castle, Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York, 1984, cat. no. 431 and pl. 28).
2. The Ladder in Circle watermark on this drawing (clearly visible after removal of the back- ing sheet) is identical to the Ladder-B watermark in: Jane Roberts, A Dictionary of Micbelangelo’s Watermarks, Olivetti, Milan, 1988, p. 23. Roberts notes that this watermark is found in Michelangelo’s The Annunciation drawing at the Pierpont Morgan Library (Pierpont Morgan Library IV, 7; Charles de Tolnay, Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo, Novara, 1975-80, no. 399) which she dates to the mid- to late 1540s. This watermark strongly supports the affirmation that the present drawing was made by an artist working in the immediate circle of Michelangelo.
3. In addition to the present drawing, there are at least three other contemporary drawings that display a similar technique of using the chalk in a silver-point manner. In his letter of May 10th, 1996, Paul Joannides has described the three works. One, in the Louvre (inv. 732, Wilde 67), after Michelangelo’s Christ on the Cross, is in black chalk and was made for Michelangelo’s friend Vittoria Colonna. It is dated by Joannides as circa 1540. On the mount of this drawing is an annotation by Philip Pouncey attributing it to Giulio Clovio. The attri- bution also has been accepted by both Catherine Monbeig-Goguel and Philippe Costamagna. Another drawing is the Three Female Heads in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem (inv. A13). This work, like Michelangelo’s drawing of the subject, is in black chalk. On the mount is Catherine Monbeig-Goguel’s annotation giving the drawing to Giulio Clovio. The third drawing (whereabouts unknown) was included as lot 82 in the Poynter Sale at Sotheby’s on April 24, 1918. This is after Michelangelo’s Male Anatomy at Windsor (Popham-Wilde No. 421) and has been assigned to Giulio Clovio by Wilde. In noting that all three of these sheets have been assigned to the hand of Giulio Clovio by well known authorities in the field: Phillip Pouncey, Catherine Monbeig-Goguel, Philippe Costamagna and Johannes Wilde, Joannides states that this fact would lead to "a strong supposition" that the present drawing also is by the same hand and thus by Clovio. Though of the opinion that all four drawings are by the same hand, Joannides still expresses skepticism as to the attribution of all of them to Clovio rather than to another talented artist in Michelangelo’s immediate circle.
4. The present drawing, as is the case of the other three drawings in this grouping, is the same size as Michelangelo’s corresponding drawing. The artist thus probably had access to the original. This would "tend to imply", as Joannides notes in his letter, "that the copyist was friendly with either Tommaso de’ Cavalieri who owned the drawing until his death in 1587, or with Michelangelo, or with both". In fact, the original at Windsor is 274 x 388 mm. in size (but with the figures clearly slightly cut on left and right and also vertically) while the present drawing is 281 x 405 mm. and appears to be the full image. This information further confirms Joannides’ conclusion that the four drawings (including the present one) were executed by the same artist.
5. The present drawing, rather than Michelangelo’s drawing of this subject, appears to be the original for an engraving executed by Enea Vico ( 1523-1567 ) and catalogued in The New Bartsch as no.48: Several Children Trying to Put a Stag into a Cooking Pot. Vico’s engraving is 286 x 405 mm., virtually identical to the present drawing (281 x 405 mm.). This engraving after the present drawing logically is in the reverse direction of the
drawing. Nicolas Beatrizet (circa 1520-1570) executed a similar engraving, probably after Vico’s. This latter work is therefore in the reverse direction of Vico’s engraving but in the same direction as the original drawing and is 284 x 402 mm. in size. The nature of the execution of the present drawing, as well as that of the other three drawings in the same grouping, indicates that all four were executed by the same artist and possibly all as studies for engravings.
6. Michelangelo’s own drawing of Bacchanal of Children, was dated to October, 1533, by Popham and Wilde. This date is based on the fact that Raffaello da Montelupo (1504/1505 1566/1567), who first entered Michelangelo’s service after the summer of 1533, at that time copied some of Michelangelo’s sheets, including the Bacchanal with Children. As to the quality of Michelangelo’s original drawing, Popham and Wilde state that:
...Technically the Bacchanal with Children represents the highest point of achievement in this series of "presentation sheets". It shows to a high degree the consistency and transparent texture of an engraving, and to perfection the closely-knit structure of a painting. Foreground and background are given the same amount of care as the figures, and there are practically no blank spaces left in the drawing.
Michael Hirst notes that it is "...the evenness of tonality over the entire sheet that is the drawing’s most astonishing aspect. The sheet is more consistently and comprehensively worked than any other of its kind." (Michelangelo and His Drawings, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 1988, pp. 115-116).
Giorgio Vasari also was impressed with the quality of Michelangelo’s drawing. Vasari described Michelangelo’s Bacchanal of Children, as the last of a group of four presentation drawings (the others being the Rape of Ganymede, the Tityus and the Fall of Phaeton) given to Michelangelo’s close friend Tommaso de’ Cavalieri (three of these drawings are now in the British Royal Collections). Vasari was particularly taken up with the chiaroscuro effects in Bacchanal of Children which he described in 1550 as: col fiato non si farebbe piu d’unione ("not with the fineness of breath could one have achieved greater unity") (Vasari Lives, Barocchi edition, 1962, I. pp. 121-122).
In summing up the neo-platonic allusions of Michelangelo’s four presentation drawings for Cavalieri, Erwin Panofsky wrote: If the flight of Ganymede symbolizes the enraptured
ascension of the Mind, and if again the punishment of Tityus and the Fall of Phaeton exem- plify the fate of those who are incapable of controlling their sensuality and imagination, the Children’s Bacchanal, which is entirely devoid of amorous tension, might be the image of a still lower sphere: the sphere of a purely vegetative life which is as much beneath specifi- cally human dignity as the Mind is above specifically human limitations. (Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, Icon Editions, New York, 1967, p. 223)
The Bacchanal of Children in fact appears to be the most complex and enigmatic of the four presentation drawings made for Cavalieri (Michelangelo made other drawings for Cavalieri including his Cleopatra). The central group in this drawing shows seven putti carrying what appears to be the body of a deer. At the upper-left, there is a group of nine other putti around a large cauldron above which are seen the heads of a pig and a hare. At the upper right, a group of putti are drinking from what appears to be a wine vat. Lower left is a woman-satyr with children and lower right several putti apparently unveiling a naked man. Until now, there has been no completely convincing interpretation of the whole scene.
7. In considering the attribution of the present drawing to Giulio Clovio, comparisons could be made with Clovio works included in Joannides’ recent book on Windsor’s Michelangelo drawings (Michelangelo and His Influence: Drawings from Windsor Castle, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,1996). In this publication, the Clovio drawings Head of Minerva (circa 1540, cat. no. 5), Ganymede (circa 1540, cat. no. 15) and The Virgin and Child with Saints...(circa 1537, cat. no. 22) all have a finished,
realistic quality and technique which differs markedly from the present drawing. On the other hand, the later drawings, also attributed to Clovio by Joannides, such as Christ on the Cross (circa 1545, cat. no. 25) and the red chalk drawing after Michelangelo The Flagellation (circa 1545, cat. no. 34) are apparently closer in date and certainly closer in technique and treatment to the present drawing. These and other comparisons, together with the related opinions noted above of Costamagna, Monbeig-Goguel, Pouncy and Wilde, as well as the circa 1545 Ladder in Circle-B watermark, support a date of circa 1545-50 and an attribution of the present drawing to Giulio Clovio.