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Lot Essay
Polidoro moved to Rome as a young teenager and soon was working in Raphael’s workshop with Giulio Romano and Perino del Vaga, among others. He absorbed the lessons of Raphael and his refined, classicizing style, and was influenced by the robust sculptural qualities of Michelangelo’s frescoes for the Sistine Chapel. The vast trove of Antique sculpture and architecture in Rome was also a source of inspiration for Polidoro. He was one of the most accomplished and versatile artists working in Rome in the beginning of the 16th century.
This sheet combines the delicacy of Raphael’s red-chalk drawings, with the weightiness of Michelangelo’s forms. The very fine, parallel hatching creates a solid, yet graceful pose. The technique displays an understanding of light and shadow that creates a sense of the figure’s volume. The strokes of red chalk to indicate folds in the drapery are complemented by a modulation of the chalk that suggests the human form underneath it. The tender manner in which the Madonna holds the Child, and her diverted but beguiling gaze suggests the psychological complexity of a figure drawn from life. The heart-shaped face, wide-set eyes and aquiline nose evoke the subtlety of classical sculpture. With this drawing Polidoro has filtered the predominant artistic influences in early 16th century Rome into his own, distinct style.
The drawing has been dated to the mid- to-late 1520s around the time Polidoro was working in Rome, but could have been executed after the Sack of Rome when he left for Messina. There is an affinity with the heads of the Madonna and Child in a drawing of pen, ink and wash with white heightening which de Castris dates to early in the artist’s Messina period (op. cit., D.183, fig. 531). De Castris also compares the facial features of the Madonna to those in a woodcut on the verso of a drawing by Polidoro that he dates to circa 1535 (de Castris, 2001, op. cit., D.31 verso (b), fig. 449). The hatching is comparable to another red chalk drawing of Two laundresses (op. cit., D.274, fig. 280). Polidoro is known to have made sketches from life, see, for example, Woman kneeling in prayer (op. cit., pp. 41-2), where the subject exhibits the same naturalism as the present sheet.
According to a note in the Philip Pouncey archives, this drawing was first recognized as by Polidoro by Sydney Freedberg in 1966.
This sheet combines the delicacy of Raphael’s red-chalk drawings, with the weightiness of Michelangelo’s forms. The very fine, parallel hatching creates a solid, yet graceful pose. The technique displays an understanding of light and shadow that creates a sense of the figure’s volume. The strokes of red chalk to indicate folds in the drapery are complemented by a modulation of the chalk that suggests the human form underneath it. The tender manner in which the Madonna holds the Child, and her diverted but beguiling gaze suggests the psychological complexity of a figure drawn from life. The heart-shaped face, wide-set eyes and aquiline nose evoke the subtlety of classical sculpture. With this drawing Polidoro has filtered the predominant artistic influences in early 16th century Rome into his own, distinct style.
The drawing has been dated to the mid- to-late 1520s around the time Polidoro was working in Rome, but could have been executed after the Sack of Rome when he left for Messina. There is an affinity with the heads of the Madonna and Child in a drawing of pen, ink and wash with white heightening which de Castris dates to early in the artist’s Messina period (op. cit., D.183, fig. 531). De Castris also compares the facial features of the Madonna to those in a woodcut on the verso of a drawing by Polidoro that he dates to circa 1535 (de Castris, 2001, op. cit., D.31 verso (b), fig. 449). The hatching is comparable to another red chalk drawing of Two laundresses (op. cit., D.274, fig. 280). Polidoro is known to have made sketches from life, see, for example, Woman kneeling in prayer (op. cit., pp. 41-2), where the subject exhibits the same naturalism as the present sheet.
According to a note in the Philip Pouncey archives, this drawing was first recognized as by Polidoro by Sydney Freedberg in 1966.