Girolamo Macchietti (1535-1592)

The features of the head in profile to the left are very similar to that of a crouching figure in a red chalk drawing sold at Christie's, 7 July 1981, lot 14 (as Salviati) exhibited at Oberlin College, Allen Memorial Art Museum, L.J. Feinberg, From Studio to Studiolo, 1990, no. 25, illustrated. One finds the same elongated shape of the nose, the slightly protuding back of the head and the fully drawn upper lip. Another sheet of the same measurements and technique as the Oberlib sheet is in the Uffizi (J. Cox-Rearick, The Drawings of Pontormo, Harvard, 1964, no. A121, inv. 6658F). It bears an old attribution to Bronzino shows two nudes with a similar profile. Another close profile, although in reverse, is that of Saint Lawrence in The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence in Santa Maria Novella, Florence, L. Feinberg, op. cit, p. 31, fig. 33.
We are grateful to Professor Janet Cox-Rearick for suggesting the attribution.