Study for the Archangel Gabriel in the Annunciation

Author: Klazina Botke

in 1957 Pouncey attributed this expressive red chalk study to Jacopo Pontormo, one of the most important Florentine artists of the sixteenth century.^[1] Some 380 drawings by him have survived, for the most part figure studies in red or black chalk.^[2] The Rotterdam drawing is a primo pensiero (first thought) for the Archangel Gabriel, identified by the raised right finger with which he announces the coming of Christ to the Virgin Mary. The angular yet energetic handling of line and the sharp contours that seem to have been redrawn several times in some places give the figure a lively character.

Pontormo’s work initially bore some resemblance to that of his teacher Andrea del Sarto (1486-1531), but he soon developed a wholly individual style of his own that was later followed by many Florentine artists, among them his pupil Giovanni Battista Naldini (1535-1591). The similarities between the master’s work and that of his followers mean that it is often difficult to distinguish the different hands. The attribution history of the Rotterdam drawing illustrates this problem. Koenigs acquired the sheet as a work by Del Sarto, but ten years later Bernard Berenson (1938) attributed the study to Naldini, a view that Sydney Freedberg (1963) was able to endorse.^[3] In April 1957, however, after a visit to the Print Room, Philip Pouncey noted: ‘Early Pontormo, a bit dull, pricked’.^[4] Hugo Chapman and Catherine Monbeig Goguel, unaware of this comment, came to the same conclusion as Pouncey in 2019.^[5] Monbeig Goguel rightly observed that the simple round shape of the skull and the almost cylindrical rendition of the limbs were typical of Pontormo’s style devices, which were also evident in his Study of a Seated Boy in Florence.^[6] She also saw the pointed fingertips and the angular outlines as typical of the artist’s early style.^[7] The sheet is moreover similar to a number of drawings that are stylistically akin to the San Ruffillo fresco (1514), a sacra conversazione made for the Church of San Ruffilo in Florence.^[8] A preliminary study for the work, now in Dresden, for instance, shows the same pointed fingers and angular lines in the execution of the folds of the garment.^[9] As a result, the Rotterdam drawing can be dated to around that same year with some certainty.

Pouncey’s description of the study as ‘a bit dull’ could have had to do with the condition of the work. The sheet has been cut down on all sides and there are many small repairs visible on the back. Besides that, the outlines of the figure have been pricked with a pin or stylus. In order to transfer the image to another surface and yet keep the drawing itself, charcoal dust was blown through the holes from the back or a muslin bag filled with charcoal powder was dabbed on it. It is clear from the fact that the verso was completely black that this was actually the case. Based on this, Monbeig Goguel suggested that the study could have been made for a figure of exactly the same proportions in a predella, a base at the foot of an altarpiece often painted with narrative scenes. Its use has in any event meant that the clarity of the design and the lines in the drawing itself have been somewhat disturbed.