Studies of male nudes and a pair of putti, after Michelangelo

The nudes and putti in this sheet are related to figures in Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. In contrast to most copies after the frescoes, the figures in this drawing are copied after less prominent parts of the frescoes; the putti can be found upper right of the Delphic Sibyl while the male nudes are after the so-called ‘bronze figures’. There are slight differences between the figures in the frescoes and those in the drawing and Paul Joannides has suggested that at least part of the drawing might in fact derive from a lost drawing by Michelangelo. Raffaele da Montelupo was suggested as a possible author when it was with Jeudwine in 1961 (see Provenance), but an attribution to this left-handed pupil of Michelangelo can no longer be sustained. The neatly-executed hatching brings to mind drawings by Giovanni Alberti (1558-1601), and the execution is particularly close to a drawing showing a Virgin and Child (a copy after an unidentified sculpture) in the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, Rome (inv. FN 2895; see K. Herrmann Fiore, Disegni degli Alberti, Rome, 1984, no. 156, ill.)

We are grateful to Professor Paul Joannides for his assistance in cataloguing this drawing.