Giorgio Vasari

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Giorgio Vasari
1511-1574
Standing Man Holding a Pike(?) and Four Studies of Heads. Verso: Three-Quarter-Length Study of a Standing Youth and a Separate Study of a Right Leg
ca. 1566
Black chalk.
11 x 7 5/8 inches (280 x 193 mm)
Gift of Herbert Kasper.
2006.159

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Notes: 

Florian Härb (written communication and forthcoming catalogue of Vasari drawings) has pointed out that the studies on the recto and verso are not related to the Sala di Leone X of the Palazzo Vecchio, as proposed by Larry Feinberg (From Studio to Studiolo, exhibition catalog), but rather are preparatory to the fresco Emperior Maximilian Ending the Siege of Livorno in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo Vecchio. The drawing can therefore be precisely dated, with a high degree of certainty, to the first half of 1566.
Attributed to Alessandro Allori at the time of the Richter sale in 1913, the drawing was first published as by Giorgio Vasari in the 1985 Sotheby's sale catalogue.

Provenance: 
Richard Johnson (died ca. 1877), Manchester and Chislehurst (Lugt 2216); Dr. Jean Paul Richter (1847-1937), London; Heseltine and Richter sale; his sale, Frederik Muller and Cie., Amsterdam, 27-28 May 1913, lot 267, pl. 35, as Alessandro Allori; sale, Sotheby's, New York, 16 January 1985, lot 14, represented, as Vasari; Elmar W. Seibel, Boston; with Thomas Williams Fine Art, London, at least since 1999; from whom acquired ca. 2002 by Herbert Kasper (1926-2020), New York.
Associated names: 

Allori, Alessandro, 1535-1607, Formerly attributed to.
Johnson, Richard, -approximately 1877, former owner.
Richter, John Paul, 1847-1937, former owner.
Seibel, Elmar W., former owner.
Kasper, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Selected references: Oberlin and Elsewhere 1991-92, 192, no. 53; Gnann and Widauer 2000, 149, 154, note 14; New York 2011, no. 19; Arezzo 2011, 144-147, no. 30; Härb 2015, 465, no. 298.
Larry J. Feinberg, From Studio to Studiolo: Florentine Draftsmanship under the First Medici Grand Dukes, exh. cat., Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, and Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 1991-92, no. 53, repr.

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