Lot Essay
This interesting red chalk drawing by the Florentine artist Baccio Bandinelli, a prolific draughtsman working for the Medici during the first half of the 16th Century, depicts a smiling woman, identified by Filippo Baldinucci as Jacopa d’Ottaviano Doni, whom the artist married in 1536. This identification is based on a label affixed on another version of the portrait (fig. 1) now in the Louvre: ‘Di Baccio Bandinelli/ Rittrato di Jacopa Doni/ sua moglie’ (inv. 81; see Viatte, op. cit., no. 7, ill.), as well as on an inscription in pen and brown ink found on a different version of the portrait now in the Uffizi (inv. 491 F; see Forlani Tempesti, op. cit., p. 524, ill.). The latter version presents several differences, notably the turn of the woman’s head in the opposite direction.
Two other red chalk portraits of women, similar in style, are related to the present sheet. The first is a double-sided sheet in the Frits Lugt collection, Paris, and presents the sitter half-length, allowing a glimpse of her dress (inv. 9136; see Byam Shaw, op. cit., I, no. 25, III, pls. 36, 37). Her face is viewed almost frontally and her eyes are cast downwards. The second drawing, in the Uffizi, shows the sitter turned to the left, her hair coiffed in elaborate braids (inv. 6974 F; see Viatte, op. cit., p. 112, ill.). Today it would appear difficult to justify the identification of the woman with Jacopa Doni, as the only confirmed portrait of Jacopa is a relief found on Bandinelli’s funeral monument in the basilica of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, where she is shown in profile (ibid., p. 112).
The head also echoes androgynous portraits by Leonardo da Vinci. In 1961, Philip Pouncey claimed that Bandinelli could have seen Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings during his stay with the sculptor Francesco Rustici in 1508 (ibid., p. 112). Bandinelli also used the smiling figure seen in the Kasper drawing for his Leda and the swan, painted around 1516-1517, which is currently housed in the collection of the Chancellerie des universités de Paris (ibid., p. 112). The difference in date between this pictyure of circa 1516 and his and Jacopa Doni’s wedding (probably in 1536) suggests that the figure in the red chalk drawing is not in fact Jacopa. Roger Ward also links this mysterious portrait to the face of an angel in The Angel of the Annunciation, a painting by Leonardo da Vinci from his later Florentine period, and of which Bandinelli drew a copy, a fact that reinforces the link between the two artists.
This alluring, sculptural image of a woman with deep-set eyes and a classic hairstyle appears in multiple red chalk drawings by the artist (Uffizi, Florence, inv. 488 F, 492 F; see A. Petrioli Tofani, Inventario. Disegni di figura. 1, Florence, 2005, pp. 209, 211, ill.), and served as variation on the theme of the smiling woman and a basis for future paintings and sculptures.
Fig. 1. Baccio Bandinelli, Portrait of a woman. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Two other red chalk portraits of women, similar in style, are related to the present sheet. The first is a double-sided sheet in the Frits Lugt collection, Paris, and presents the sitter half-length, allowing a glimpse of her dress (inv. 9136; see Byam Shaw, op. cit., I, no. 25, III, pls. 36, 37). Her face is viewed almost frontally and her eyes are cast downwards. The second drawing, in the Uffizi, shows the sitter turned to the left, her hair coiffed in elaborate braids (inv. 6974 F; see Viatte, op. cit., p. 112, ill.). Today it would appear difficult to justify the identification of the woman with Jacopa Doni, as the only confirmed portrait of Jacopa is a relief found on Bandinelli’s funeral monument in the basilica of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, where she is shown in profile (ibid., p. 112).
The head also echoes androgynous portraits by Leonardo da Vinci. In 1961, Philip Pouncey claimed that Bandinelli could have seen Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings during his stay with the sculptor Francesco Rustici in 1508 (ibid., p. 112). Bandinelli also used the smiling figure seen in the Kasper drawing for his Leda and the swan, painted around 1516-1517, which is currently housed in the collection of the Chancellerie des universités de Paris (ibid., p. 112). The difference in date between this pictyure of circa 1516 and his and Jacopa Doni’s wedding (probably in 1536) suggests that the figure in the red chalk drawing is not in fact Jacopa. Roger Ward also links this mysterious portrait to the face of an angel in The Angel of the Annunciation, a painting by Leonardo da Vinci from his later Florentine period, and of which Bandinelli drew a copy, a fact that reinforces the link between the two artists.
This alluring, sculptural image of a woman with deep-set eyes and a classic hairstyle appears in multiple red chalk drawings by the artist (Uffizi, Florence, inv. 488 F, 492 F; see A. Petrioli Tofani, Inventario. Disegni di figura. 1, Florence, 2005, pp. 209, 211, ill.), and served as variation on the theme of the smiling woman and a basis for future paintings and sculptures.
Fig. 1. Baccio Bandinelli, Portrait of a woman. Musée du Louvre, Paris.