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Lot Essay
Powerfully drawn in pen and ink, this study of a standing male nude is the result of the interaction in Veneto during the Renaissance between drawing and printmaking. Caught while looking upward, the figure makes a monumental impression, enhanced by a slight sotto in sù perspective. Carefully defined by a tight system of cross-hatching, his muscular body surfaces on the sheet almost in relief through balanced contrasts of light and shadow. While his left arm rests on his hip, the right one appears wrapped in voluminous drapery that the draftsman has suggested with a series of loose, curvy lines.
Stylistically the sheet belongs to a group of about sixteen studies after the antique, male nudes or mythological figures in a landscape that has been quite recently attributed to the Paduan artist Stefano dell’Arzere. Active between the 1530s and the 1570s, Stefano is first documented in the workshop of the Venetian painter, draftsman and printmaker Domenico Campagnola during the mural decoration of the Sala dei Giganti in Padua, circa 1540-41, and he was deeply influenced by his master’s style and distinctive graphic technique.
As argued by Giovanni Agosti in 2001, the sheet closely relates to two pen-and-ink studies of male nudes inspired by the Belvedere Torso now in the Uffizi (inv. 692 E and 1763; F. Agosti, op. cit., nos. 101-102), attributed to Stefano by Alessandro Ballarin. The Uffizi drawings show the adoption of Stefano’s bold drawing technique, which alternates highly dense passages of cross-hatching with loose, broad curved lines in the background. Of similar size to the present sheet (24 x 18 cm. and 25 x 19 cm. respectively) the two drawings in the Uffizi, and this one, may have been part of the same sketchbook. Particularly striking is also a comparison with a third drawing in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 5106), of a male nude reclining in a landscape – possibly a river god – whose right arm appears similarly wrapped in a voluminous piece of fabric. One could argue that the present male nude was executed in preparation for the composition in Berlin.
The drawings now attributed to this radical draftsman have been subject of much connoisseurial debate in the past, especially for their close stylistic proximity with those by Campagnola (summarized in Rearick, op. cit., p. 247 under the group 'Stefano dell’Arzere o Domenico Campagnola'). As attested by two similar drawings inspired by the Belvedere Torso now in Rome (Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, inv. FC125854) and the Städel, Frankfurt (inv. 5518), Campagnola uses a finer pen stroke than Stefano’s, clearly the consequence of his methodical approach as a printmaker. Stefano’s ink style express a bolder, almost aggressive, freedom from the discipline of the printmakers and a stronger influence from works on paper by Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo.
Stylistically the sheet belongs to a group of about sixteen studies after the antique, male nudes or mythological figures in a landscape that has been quite recently attributed to the Paduan artist Stefano dell’Arzere. Active between the 1530s and the 1570s, Stefano is first documented in the workshop of the Venetian painter, draftsman and printmaker Domenico Campagnola during the mural decoration of the Sala dei Giganti in Padua, circa 1540-41, and he was deeply influenced by his master’s style and distinctive graphic technique.
As argued by Giovanni Agosti in 2001, the sheet closely relates to two pen-and-ink studies of male nudes inspired by the Belvedere Torso now in the Uffizi (inv. 692 E and 1763; F. Agosti, op. cit., nos. 101-102), attributed to Stefano by Alessandro Ballarin. The Uffizi drawings show the adoption of Stefano’s bold drawing technique, which alternates highly dense passages of cross-hatching with loose, broad curved lines in the background. Of similar size to the present sheet (24 x 18 cm. and 25 x 19 cm. respectively) the two drawings in the Uffizi, and this one, may have been part of the same sketchbook. Particularly striking is also a comparison with a third drawing in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (KdZ 5106), of a male nude reclining in a landscape – possibly a river god – whose right arm appears similarly wrapped in a voluminous piece of fabric. One could argue that the present male nude was executed in preparation for the composition in Berlin.
The drawings now attributed to this radical draftsman have been subject of much connoisseurial debate in the past, especially for their close stylistic proximity with those by Campagnola (summarized in Rearick, op. cit., p. 247 under the group 'Stefano dell’Arzere o Domenico Campagnola'). As attested by two similar drawings inspired by the Belvedere Torso now in Rome (Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, inv. FC125854) and the Städel, Frankfurt (inv. 5518), Campagnola uses a finer pen stroke than Stefano’s, clearly the consequence of his methodical approach as a printmaker. Stefano’s ink style express a bolder, almost aggressive, freedom from the discipline of the printmakers and a stronger influence from works on paper by Titian and Sebastiano del Piombo.