The Finding of Moses

Author: Rosie Razzall

This drawing was included in an album of Venetian drawings assembled by Francesco II D’Adda and acquired by Franz Koenigs in 1926.^[1] In the D’Adda inventory the drawing was given to the school of Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), and was moved to Palma Giovane (c.1550-1628) shortly after it was acquired by Koenigs. The sheet was first attributed to Zelotti by Aikema/Meijer,^[2] an attribution endorsed by Brugnolo Meloncelli,^[3] although there are very few surviving drawings by Zelotti with which to make stylistic comparisons. Zelotti collaborated with Veronese to paint frescoes in Venice and Castelfranco. The drawing was first identified as the Finding of Moses in the D’Adda inventory, and although no baby Moses is visible, the two women leaning their heads together on the right of the sheet are particularly close to figures in Veronese’s representations of the subject, the best known example of which is in Washington, DC.^[4] No specific painting by Zelotti has been identified in relation to the Rotterdam drawing, although a painting in Washington County of the Finding of Moses has been attributed to the artist.^[5] The artist and biographer Carlo Ridolfi (1594-1658) also describes a series of frescoed scenes from the life of Moses by Zelotti on the façades of the Monte di Pietà, Vicenza, that no longer survive.^[6]

Whether it was made with a painting or a fresco in mind, the drawing is evidently a preparatory study, with the artist experimenting with different positions for the figures. The group on the left is drawn at a larger scale and presumably demonstrates a different iteration of the poses, rather than the figures belonging to the same group as that on the right. There are various graphite pentimenti in the positions of the heads and arms, and the brown wash indicates other alternative positions (such as the leg of the figure in the right-hand group) as well as the artist beginning to add volume to the bodies of the left-hand group.

The drawing has been trimmed into a curve at upper and lower edges, possibly by D’Adda when arranging his albums. However, its original function as a studio sheet is clear from several mathematical calculations and numbers written on both sides, as well as the various drawings on the verso that include kneeling and seated figures, a study of a face looking upwards, and other unidentifiable sketches. The variety of media with which these additions were made – pen and ink, red chalk, black chalk, and graphite – attest to the sheet being picked up in the studio at various times and casual jottings added to its spare spaces. The glyph at the centre of the verso has previously been identified as an inscription reading ‘Zelotti’, and the first two letters suggest ‘Ze’, but as it afterwards descends into the wiggling lines of a nib being tested before use, it is unlikely to be a signature.