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Lot Essay
Veronese's surviving drawings divide into three distinct groups, the finished drawings in wash on tinted paper that present the final composition, the worked-up studies in black and white chalk on blue paper that resolve the forms of individual figures, and the drawings in pen and ink which, like the present drawing, seem to document the initial stage of the artist's inspiration. The elements are drawn spontaneously and with élan, each well-formed figure presenting a self-contained pose but also interacting with the myriad of studies around it.
Each figure is drawn from a low viewpoint suggesting that the artist was thinking of a freso placed high on a wall or on a ceiling. The figures also have a sculptural quality: the figures of Venus and Cupid at the centre seem to derive from the 2nd Century AD statue of Venus Felix with Amor, placed by Pope Julius II in the Belvedere at the Vatican, which Veronese may have known from prints or other reproductions. The pose of the Venus may have been the starting point for Veronese's fresco of the goddess used in the ceiling in a lower room in the Palazzo Trevisan, now in the Louvre (T. Pignatti, op. cit., no. 76B), a connection reinforced by the similarity between the seated figure to the left of the drawing with the fresco of Apollo for the same Palazzo (T. Pignatti, op. cit., no. 76A).
Other figures in the drawing are harder to identify: the three male figures at the top left may be Mercury, who is repeated below holding his caduceus. Further down the sheet the figure seems to morph into Saturn holding his scythe precariously between his legs and again with an eagle or perhaps a swan.
The triangle of figures at the bottom of the sheet can however clearly be associated with the figure of King David in Veronese's fresco for the nave of the church of San Sebastiano, Venice, painted, like the interior of the Palazzo Trevisan, in 1556-58. In the extreme left the figure is shown under a suggestion of the trompe l'oeil arch found in the fresco. Above, the artist concentrates on the position of King David's left arm, and above that investigates the possibility of him holding his harp in front of him, the balance of the figure examined in a nude study. Below these is a quick study of the pose to be used, another of the draperies, and in the far right a first idea for the harp itself.
Each figure is drawn from a low viewpoint suggesting that the artist was thinking of a freso placed high on a wall or on a ceiling. The figures also have a sculptural quality: the figures of Venus and Cupid at the centre seem to derive from the 2nd Century AD statue of Venus Felix with Amor, placed by Pope Julius II in the Belvedere at the Vatican, which Veronese may have known from prints or other reproductions. The pose of the Venus may have been the starting point for Veronese's fresco of the goddess used in the ceiling in a lower room in the Palazzo Trevisan, now in the Louvre (T. Pignatti, op. cit., no. 76B), a connection reinforced by the similarity between the seated figure to the left of the drawing with the fresco of Apollo for the same Palazzo (T. Pignatti, op. cit., no. 76A).
Other figures in the drawing are harder to identify: the three male figures at the top left may be Mercury, who is repeated below holding his caduceus. Further down the sheet the figure seems to morph into Saturn holding his scythe precariously between his legs and again with an eagle or perhaps a swan.
The triangle of figures at the bottom of the sheet can however clearly be associated with the figure of King David in Veronese's fresco for the nave of the church of San Sebastiano, Venice, painted, like the interior of the Palazzo Trevisan, in 1556-58. In the extreme left the figure is shown under a suggestion of the trompe l'oeil arch found in the fresco. Above, the artist concentrates on the position of King David's left arm, and above that investigates the possibility of him holding his harp in front of him, the balance of the figure examined in a nude study. Below these is a quick study of the pose to be used, another of the draperies, and in the far right a first idea for the harp itself.