Study of a Seated Male Nude

Author: Surya Stemerding

This drawing is one of dozens of surviving preliminary studies for elements of the frescoes Annibale Carracci made with his brother Agostino (1557-1602), who was three years his senior, between 1595 and 1605 in the Sala Grande of Palazzo Farnese in Rome.^[1] It is a study for one of the two satyrs sitting on the upper corners of the illusionistic frame painted around the large central scene Polyphemus and Acis (fig.) on the north side of the barrel vault. Each satyr is placed with his back to the smaller painting of The Abduction of Ganymede.

There are three studies for the other satyrs in Paris: a study for the second satyr on this part of the vault, and two for the facing south wall, painted as pendants above the central scene of Pan and Diana.^[2] The drawing in Rotterdam differs from the fresco in two respects. The face of the satyr in the painting is caricature-like, whereas the figure in the drawing has a serious expression. The transition from the upper part of the leg to the hairy goat’s leg was not carried out until the fresco. In the first instance, the artist concentrated solely on the position he wanted to create, and the development into a mythological figure came later. The other three studies belong to that advanced stage; the goat’s legs have been drawn in, as have the pointed ears.

The group of satyr studies demonstrates that Annibale only designed parts of a composition at the moment he was actually painting it. He did not have a full set of worked-out preliminary drawings for the whole of the fresco. The two studies of satyrs in the Louvre, made for the previously painted south side of the vault were clearly drawn earlier than the two studies for the north side, among them the drawing in Rotterdam. The positions of the figures in the earlier drawings are stiffer. In the two drawings for the north wall, the poses of the figures are much more dynamic, and the finish is more limited, illustrative of Annibale’s evolving drawing skill and artistic expression.

Like the three drawings in the Louvre, the Rotterdam drawing comes from the collection of Francesco Angeloni (1587-1652), a Roman author and eminent collector of antiquities and contemporary painting. The four drawings found their way into Pierre-Jean Mariette’s collection via the Paris collectors Pierre Mignard and Pierre Crozat.^[3] The group was split up in Mariette’s estate sale in 1775-76.^[4] While the three drawings were purchased for the French king’s cabinet and duly ended up together in the Louvre, the Rotterdam satyr disappeared from view, not to surface again for a century and a half when it appeared in the Emile Wauters sale in 1926.