Young Man Swinging a Sword

Author: Gert Jan van der Sman

This unpublished sheet was drawn in a technique similar to that of a study of kneeling and seated figures in Berlin.^[1] The Berlin drawing is regarded as being one of a group of drawings that Degenhart and Schmitt (1968) listed under the name of Domenico Veneziano (c.1410-1461) and is currently often attributed to Luca della Robbia (1399/1400-1482).^[2] What particularly links the two drawings is the use of white areas applied around the figures with a broad brush.

However, there are also noticeable stylistic differences. The depiction of the figures in the Berlin drawing can be associated with both Domenico Veneziano’s small panel St Francis Receiving the Stigmata in Washington,^[3] and the painted tondi of the twelve months of the year by Luca della Robbia in London.^[4] From this follows a dating of between around 1445 and 1460. The male figure in the Rotterdam drawing has less clear similarities to works by Domenico Veneziano and the artists in his sphere of influence, who include Luca della Robbia.^[5] The folds of his garments are not worked out in as much detail as those we see in the drawing in Berlin, and the legs of the young man ferociously swinging his sword are out of proportion to his upper body. The Rotterdam drawing is thus part of a drawing tradition that started around 1450, but this sheet appears to be dated slightly later. There are two possibilities when it comes to the dating: around 1470 to 1480, when model studies were made in Florentine artists’ workshops on a large scale, or around 1600, as Aidan Weston-Lewis and Miles Chappell suspect on the basis of the flowing drawing technique.^[6]