Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Figures on Clouds, Seen From Below

Italian School

Figures on Clouds, Seen From Below

ca. 1641
14 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches (368 x 394 mm)
Red chalk on laid paper. Lined overall.
IV, 39a

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

Description

Both this and a related drawing in the Morgan’s collection, are likely by the same hand after a section on the western face of Correggio’s fresco in the cupola of Parma Cathedral, which he was commissioned to decorate between 1526 and 1530.1 Inv. IV, 39 is quite close to Correggio’s working drawings, which were customarily traced with some portions drawn free-hand, such as a sheet in the Staedelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt.2 However, as A. E. Popham argued, the present drawing’s connection with the present study – more clearly weaker and later in execution – precludes its claim as autograph.3 In particular, it is worth noting the tentative execution of one of the most dynamic figures in the fresco, namely the “exposed” angel, seen from below.

As Popham observed, the two Morgan sheets are larger than the Frankfurt study and differ from the scale on which Correggio typically drew (unpublished letter to Morgan curators, 1952). Moreover, Popham noted that the scale of Morgan drawings correspond with Giovanni Battista Vanni’s reproductive engraving of the same section of Correggio’s fresco, adding that the Morgan sheets might be Vanni’s preparatory studies. The two Morgan drawings make up both halves of the engraving and, as Rhoda Eitel-Porter noted, come closer to the print than the fresco. Eitel-Porter also observed that the drawn and engraved figures are more sharply foreshortened and in the present drawing, as in Vanni’s print, the draftsman has shifted the angel at upper right to fill the space of an area of the fresco that was not reproduced.

Footnotes:

  1. Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. IV, 39.
  2. Staedelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, inv. 595. See Popham 1957, 160, no. 54.
  3. Popham 1957, 73, 188.
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed on verso at upper center, in pen and brown ink, "Di Anto [o superscript] Allegri da Coreggio / nella Cupo. a[a superscript] - / nel 1505" (originally 1525).
Watermark: Hard to decipher, possibly star or sun.
Associated names
Anonymous, Italian School, 16th cent., Formerly attributed to.
Correggio, 1489?-1534, after.
Reynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723-1792, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Morgan, J. P. (John Pierpont), 1867-1943, former owner.
Bibliography
Selected references: Popham 1957, 73, 188, no. A86, fig. 29 (as after Correggio).
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department