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Lot Essay
Anne-Marie Logan and Jeremy Wood have both kindly confirmed the attribution to Rubens on studying the drawing in the original. Both scholars relate the drawing to two studies of a nude model in the pose of the Spinario, in red chalk and from slightly different angles, in the British Museum (J.S. Held, op. cit., no. 39) and the Museé de Dijon (A.M. Logan, op. cit., no. 14). Comparison of the paper of the present drawing with that of the drawing at the British Museum suggests that they are from the same stock, and that the drawings were executed at about the same time. The British Museum drawing has been variously dated to Rubens' first or second trip to Rome, in 1601-2 or 1606-8, largely on the grounds that Rubens' would have seen the sculpture of the Spinario at the Palazzo dei Conservatori while he was there. Anne-Marie Logan notes that the drawings in Dijon and the British Museum are in red chalk and therefore relate more to Rubens' copies after Michelangelo, while the black chalk of the present sheet relates it the drawings after classical sculpture made on the second trip to Rome. This would therefore suggest a date of circa 1606-8.
Jeremy Wood, however, suggests that the drawings seem closer to Rubens' draughtsmanship following his return to Antwerp, adducing both stylistic and circumstantial reasons. The most closely comparable drawings to the Spinario group are two drawings of a small statue of a reclining woman seen from different angles in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (C. Whistler and J. Wood (eds.), Rubens in Italy, exhib. cat., Oxford, Christ Church Picture Gallery, and elsewhere, 1988, no. 4), and formerly in the Robert von Hirsch Collection (Sotheby's, London, 20 June 1978, lot 34). Both drawings date to the second decade of the 17th Century, and in the soft handling of the chalk are very similar to the present drawing. Rubens' drawings after the Antique drawn in Italy have a noticeably harder feeling, and are characterised by a tightness not found in the Spinario group. Equally, although an academic study unrelated to a specific picture is rare among Rubens' drawings, this need not necessarily imply an Italian origin. The technique of arranging the studio model in the pose of an antique sculpture was certainly promoted by the Carracci and their followers, but was also common in the drawing academies of Northern Europe.
Throughout his career, but particularly while in Italy, Rubens drew copies after antique sculpture to impress the forms into his imagination, and to provide a gallery of poses and compositional solutions that he could draw on for his own work. As he wrote in his treatise on studying antique sculpture 'I conclude, however, that in order to attain the highest perfection in painting it is necessary to understand the antiques, nay, to be so thoroughly possessed of this knowledge that it may diffuse itself everywhere' (De Imitatione Statuarum, quoted in J.R. Martin, Baroque, New York, 1977, p. 271). Almost all of the drawings taken directly from the antique are in red chalk, using tight and meticulous hatched strokes to indicate the play of light on stone. The present drawing shows Rubens taking the process one step further. The studio model is positioned in such a way that he imitates the classical pose, allowing Rubens to combine his study of the underlying classical structure of the figure with a delicate contemporary representation of flesh and bone. This substitution of a live model for the bronze prototype also allows the artist to add individuality and character to the face. The three known drawings of the model in this pose, in Dijon, the British Museum and the present example show Rubens taking multiple viewpoints, a comparable practice to the method he employed when drawing sculpture in Rome, for example in his drawings of the Laocoon group (M. van der Meulen, op. cit., nos. 76-93). Each of the three drawings shows a slightly different angle: from behind and in profile to the right in the two figures on the drawing in Dijon, in profile to the left from a slightly raised position in the two figures on the drawing in the British Museum, and in three-quarter profile to the left in the present drawing. Rubens translated poses learnt from antique sculpture into live models on a number of occasions, for example the Study of a nude man, drawn from life circa 1612 (J.S. Held, op. cit., no. 80), which is based in reverse on the pose of Laocoon, seen in Rubens' copy in Milan (M. van der Meulen, op. cit., I, pp. 80-81, and II, no. 76).
The bronze of the Spinario was among the best known and most copied pieces of antique sculpture in Renaissance Rome. The bronze itself probably dates from the 1st Century B.C., although the combination of the Hellenistic suppleness of the figure and the more formal Early Classical style of the head leaves cause for uncertainty. The figure is first recorded in the 12th Century in the Papal Collection at the Lateran Palace, and was among the bronzes donated by Pope Sixtus IV to the Palazzo dei Conservatori in 1471. Drawings of the figure appear in drawings both by Italian and Northern artists, for example a sheet by Parmigianino at Chatsworth (A.E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven and London, 1971, no. 710, pl. 211) and another by Maerten van Heemskerk in the Ashmolean (illustrated in P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists & Antique Sculpture, London, 1986, fig. 203a). Perhaps most interesting in the present instance is a drawing in the Uffizi attributed to Francesco Granacci showing a studio model posed as the Spinario (B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago, 1938, no. 949, fig. 397).
Jeremy Wood, however, suggests that the drawings seem closer to Rubens' draughtsmanship following his return to Antwerp, adducing both stylistic and circumstantial reasons. The most closely comparable drawings to the Spinario group are two drawings of a small statue of a reclining woman seen from different angles in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (C. Whistler and J. Wood (eds.), Rubens in Italy, exhib. cat., Oxford, Christ Church Picture Gallery, and elsewhere, 1988, no. 4), and formerly in the Robert von Hirsch Collection (Sotheby's, London, 20 June 1978, lot 34). Both drawings date to the second decade of the 17th Century, and in the soft handling of the chalk are very similar to the present drawing. Rubens' drawings after the Antique drawn in Italy have a noticeably harder feeling, and are characterised by a tightness not found in the Spinario group. Equally, although an academic study unrelated to a specific picture is rare among Rubens' drawings, this need not necessarily imply an Italian origin. The technique of arranging the studio model in the pose of an antique sculpture was certainly promoted by the Carracci and their followers, but was also common in the drawing academies of Northern Europe.
Throughout his career, but particularly while in Italy, Rubens drew copies after antique sculpture to impress the forms into his imagination, and to provide a gallery of poses and compositional solutions that he could draw on for his own work. As he wrote in his treatise on studying antique sculpture 'I conclude, however, that in order to attain the highest perfection in painting it is necessary to understand the antiques, nay, to be so thoroughly possessed of this knowledge that it may diffuse itself everywhere' (De Imitatione Statuarum, quoted in J.R. Martin, Baroque, New York, 1977, p. 271). Almost all of the drawings taken directly from the antique are in red chalk, using tight and meticulous hatched strokes to indicate the play of light on stone. The present drawing shows Rubens taking the process one step further. The studio model is positioned in such a way that he imitates the classical pose, allowing Rubens to combine his study of the underlying classical structure of the figure with a delicate contemporary representation of flesh and bone. This substitution of a live model for the bronze prototype also allows the artist to add individuality and character to the face. The three known drawings of the model in this pose, in Dijon, the British Museum and the present example show Rubens taking multiple viewpoints, a comparable practice to the method he employed when drawing sculpture in Rome, for example in his drawings of the Laocoon group (M. van der Meulen, op. cit., nos. 76-93). Each of the three drawings shows a slightly different angle: from behind and in profile to the right in the two figures on the drawing in Dijon, in profile to the left from a slightly raised position in the two figures on the drawing in the British Museum, and in three-quarter profile to the left in the present drawing. Rubens translated poses learnt from antique sculpture into live models on a number of occasions, for example the Study of a nude man, drawn from life circa 1612 (J.S. Held, op. cit., no. 80), which is based in reverse on the pose of Laocoon, seen in Rubens' copy in Milan (M. van der Meulen, op. cit., I, pp. 80-81, and II, no. 76).
The bronze of the Spinario was among the best known and most copied pieces of antique sculpture in Renaissance Rome. The bronze itself probably dates from the 1st Century B.C., although the combination of the Hellenistic suppleness of the figure and the more formal Early Classical style of the head leaves cause for uncertainty. The figure is first recorded in the 12th Century in the Papal Collection at the Lateran Palace, and was among the bronzes donated by Pope Sixtus IV to the Palazzo dei Conservatori in 1471. Drawings of the figure appear in drawings both by Italian and Northern artists, for example a sheet by Parmigianino at Chatsworth (A.E. Popham, Catalogue of the Drawings of Parmigianino, New Haven and London, 1971, no. 710, pl. 211) and another by Maerten van Heemskerk in the Ashmolean (illustrated in P.P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists & Antique Sculpture, London, 1986, fig. 203a). Perhaps most interesting in the present instance is a drawing in the Uffizi attributed to Francesco Granacci showing a studio model posed as the Spinario (B. Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago, 1938, no. 949, fig. 397).