Christ among the Doctors

Author: Albert Elen

This miniature drawing belongs to a narrative series depicting scenes from the life of Christ. Seven out of ten known drawings are now in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (I 234-240), two are in Cambridge (Mass.), and the whereabouts of the tenth are unknown.^[1] Until 1927 the ten drawings were still together, pasted into a small eighteenth-century album. In the sale catalogue of that year the album was described as small and with a red morocco binding decorated with royal arms ('Suite de dix miniatures [...] Dans un petit album en vieux maroquin rouge du XVIIIe siècle aux armes royales’). Apparently, the album was broken up during or immediately after the sale and the drawings were sold separately, being dispersed as a result, although seven stayed together and were bought by Franz Koenigs.^[2] The fate of the empty album is unknown, but the luxury binding was probably kept as such, reused, or discarded. Which royal arms were on the cover is not known, but it may have been the Robiano family crest, as the lot was in the section of various consigners including the ‘Comte de Robiano’.^[3] Three obvious scenes missing from an extended Life of Christ series are The Annunciation, The Nativity and The Adoration of the Magi, as noted by Boscovits, all chronologically preceding the remaining scenes. In addition, The Mocking of Christ, The Flagellation, The Bearing of the Cross, The Crucifixion as well as some post mortem scenes, such as The Descent into Limbo, The Resurrection and The Ascension, would have formed part of an extended narrative complex, like the 32 painted scenes of The Armadio degli Argenti, the Silver Chest reliquary made by Fra Angelico (c.1395-1455) and his workshop in 1451-53 to the order of Piero de’ Medici (1416-1469) as an ex voto (votive offering) for the Santissima Annunziata (the remaining panels are now in the Museo di San Marco in Florence).^[4] If these drawings did indeed exist, they were detached from the group before the album was made, and are probably lost.

The ten drawings were included in the 1927 sale catalogue as Florentine around 1450, executed in amaranth (body)colour with white heightenings by two different hands, inspired by various works of Fra Angelico: ‘Maître Florentin vers 1450 […] peintes en couleur amarante avec des rehauts de blanc. Elles sont de deux mains différentes, s'inspirant de différentes oeuvres de Fra Angelico’. The distinction between ‘Miniaturiste A’ and ‘Miniaturiste B’ was based solely on the colour of the preparation, ‘avec des fonds d’un pourpre plus foncé’ and ‘avec des fonds moins pourprés’, the first including five of the Rotterdam drawings, the second two (I 237, I 239). This presumed distinction has since been rightly ignored. The only drawing standing out from the others technically is The Washing of the Feet (I 240) which has heightening in yellow-orange as well as in white body colour.

The relation to the Silver Chest and the dependence on Fra Angelico’s style have determined the descriptions in the literature, which range from inferior derivations to autograph designs. The drawings were included as School of Fra Angelico in the Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen, 1300-1450 by Degenhart/Schmitt (1968) as designs for book illustrations or models for artists in the San Marco workshop. More recently, Boscovits (2002) attributed them to the master himself, in view of the correspondences with some of the scenes on the Armadio. He considers the execution of the miniature drawings as high quality, leading him to believe the series was possibly made as a presentation model of the Armadio design for the client. Palladino (2005) rejects this theory, convincingly pointing to radical differences both stylistic and compositional, considering the drawings the work of Zanobi Strozzi (1412-1468). Until 1445 Strozzi, a scion of the renowned Florentine patrician family, was a close collaborator of Fra Angelico in the latter’s workshop in San Domenico, Fiesole.^[5] From 1446 onward, he worked mainly in his native city of Florence, in collaboration with other artists, as was common practice, both as a panel painter and an illuminator of liturgical manuscripts, such as Psalters and Graduals, several of which survive today. These colourful illuminated initials and miniatures in the centre or at the bottom of pages are highly dependent on Fra Angelico’s oeuvre, with which Strozzi was so well acquainted. The surviving drawings of The Life of Christ series bear witness to that. The correspondence with the Armadio scenes seems more derivative than preparatory, in view of compositional and stylistic discrepancies - foremost the difference in format (vertical drawings, horizontal paintings) and inaccuracies in the spatial construction - which are described in the captions to the individual drawings.^[6] The drawings lack texts on the reverse side and are therefore certainly not miniatures removed from an illustrated manuscript. In view of their drawn borders, minute execution and small dimensions, they may have served as models for niello designs executed by a local goldsmith such as Maso Finiguerra (1426-1464), possibly to decorate a small portable altarpiece, a purpose for which they may themselves have served as well.^[7] 

In this miniature drawing the architectural background is, for a change, more impressive than that in the painted version on the Armadio degli Argenti (fig.), delicately executed with vaulted ceilings in the gothic apses and side chapels and highlights along the pilasters, with garlands hanging between them. The young Christ stands isolated from the doctors, who are seated or stand in a semicircle in front of him, different from the painted version. The scene is also set slightly at a distance, the figures placed on a platform, which is lacking in the painting.