Exhibitions

Rome After Raphael
January 22 through May 9, 2010

+zoom	Cherubino Alberti (Borgo San Sepolcro 1553–1615 Rome) Justice and Fortitude Flanking the Arms of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini, ca. 1596-98 Pen and brown ink, brown wash, over black chalk Inscribed on banderole at right, in pen and brown ink, VIII P[ontifex] M[aximus]. Diameter 8 7/8 inhes (225 mm) Gift of Janos Scholz, 1979 The putto in the drawing is seated on a globe decorated with shorthand notations for the stars and diagonal band that constitute the Aldobrandini coat of arms. In all likelihood, the drawing is an early study for the decoration of the Sala Clementina in the Vatican Palace, executed around 1596 to 1598 by the brothers Cherubino and Giovanni Alberti for Pope Clement VIII. This feat of illusionistic painting, prefiguring the Baroque, is considered the Alberti's most important work.

+zoom	Jacopo Bertoia (Parma 1544–ca. 1573 Parma) Joseph in Prison Interpreting the Dreams of Pharaoh's Butler and Baker Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, over graphite; squared in pen and brown ink 9 11/16 x 8 11/16 inches (246 x 221 mm) Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1910; III, 141a Photography by Graham Haber, 2009 This drawing was recently identified as Bertoia's study for one of four lunettes with Old Testament episodes involving dreams in the Villa Farnese at Caprarola north of Rome. It portrays Joseph of the Old Testament among his fellow prisoners. The figure at right with a raised arm apparently is the baker, who related his dream as follows: "I had three white baskets on my head: and in the uppermost basket there was all manner of bakemeats for the Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them." The man at left is the butler.

+zoom	Girolamo da Carpi (Ferrara 1501–1556 Ferrara) Antique Sculpture of Apollo and Two Niches with Statues Pen and brown ink 9 1/2 x 6 5/8 inches (240 x 168 mm) Gift of Janos Scholz, 1984; 1984.3 The courtyard of Fabio Sassi's home in Rome, shown here, housed one of the major Renaissance collections of antiquities, including an antique porphyry statue now identified as Apollo and in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples. Well known during the Renaissance and sketched by numerous visitors to Rome, the statue was then thought to represent a female, occasionally identified as Cleopatra or an allegory of Rome. Here da Carpi completed the figure to include its hands and lower arms, which were missing at the time the drawing was made. In 1546 Fabio Sassi and his brother Decidio sold their collection of antiquities to Ottavio Farnese, and the sculpture was moved to Palazzo Farnese.

+zoom	Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) Eroded Riverbank with Trees and Exposed Roots, ca. 1590–92 Pen and brown ink; lined and mounted on closely trimmed Mariette mount Inscribed in pen and brown ink, at lower center, Anibbale Caracci. 15 7/8 x 11 1/16 inches (402 x 280 mm) Purchase, The Morgan Library & Museum; 1972.6 Although landscape never assumed a central role in his art, Annibale Carracci's innovations in the genre played a pivotal role in the development of the seventeenth-century landscape. This rare plein-air study shows the artist concentrating on detail, rather than on the more common broadly conceived view. Probably begun from life and finished in the studio, this sensitive rendering of vegetation along a riverbank likely dates to the artist's late Bolognese period of around 1590–92, before his departure for Rome in 1595.

+zoom	Annibale Carracci (Bologna 1560–1609 Rome) Flying Putto Black chalk, stumped 11 5/8 x 7 1/8 inches (295 x 182 mm) Purchased on the Fellows Fund, 1975; 1975.3 Photography by Graham Haber, 2009 Annibale Carracci arrived in Rome in 1595 at the summons of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese in order to work on the decorations of Palazzo Farnese. The drawings for the Farnese Gallery—the artist's most ambitious undertaking—are considered the pinnacle of his legendary draftsmanship. This chubby infant is related to frescoes of paired cupids that occupy the corners of the ceiling vault—some wrestling for a palm branch, others bearing a torch—carried out between 1598 and 1601. Surely drawn from a live model, this figure study reveals Annibale's astonishing ability to render a body in space. He expertly exploited the chalk to capture the child's vitality as well as the warm glow of light on its smoothly textured skin.

+zoom	Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari, 1568-1640) Child Walking, Looking Over Its Shoulder Black and red chalk 12 x 8 7/16 inches (305 x 215 mm) Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1910; IV, 161a Photography by Graham Haber, 2009 Full of life and movement, the vivacious young page is shown as if caught on the spur of the moment, grasping the hand of an accompanying adult and turning back to indicate to the viewer that something beyond the confines of the composition has caught his attention. This study has been related to a similar figure of a child in contemporary dress in a painting commissioned in 1589 and dispatched by the artist from Rome to Cesena in 1601, though there is no direct correspondence in pose.

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