Study of Three Groups of Figures

Author: Klazina Botke

For most of his life Alessandro Casolani worked in the vicinity of Siena, first in the workshop of Arcangelo Salimbeni (before 1567-1589), later together with Cristoforo Roncalli (1552-1626). He spent some time in Rome to study ancient and contemporary artists, whose works, according to his biographer Baldinucci, he copied frequently: ‘delle quali fece infiniti disegni’.^[1] This sheet, once torn roughly into four pieces and later repaired on a backing sheet, shows three groups of figures. The woman in the centre holds a medallion (?), while the man in the turban beside her bends forward and appears to be speaking to her. On the left is a woman with a child, surrounded by three other women and a man. On the far right of the composition we see two more figures prominently depicted. The boy holding something in his right hand stands out among the group of bystanders. What event is happening here is not clear. There is some likeness between the figure furthest right, with hands folded, and the standing figure in Casolani’s red chalk study in Florence.^[2]

Stylistically, the Rotterdam sheet, which has not been published until now, fits in well with other pen-and-ink drawings by Casolani. We see, for instance, the characteristic rendition of the figures’ hands and faces recurring in the study sheet with an Ascension of the Virgin, now in New York.^[3] The attribution to Casolani, which also emerges from the reference in Greek and from the Latin script below the drawing, was confirmed by Philip Pouncey in 1957.^[4] The inscription was added by a collector, and Giorgio Vasari reported in his Vite (1568) that Florentine collectors and scholars, in particular, liked to use Greek.^[5] Because of this, the anonymous collector is sometimes referred to in the literature as the ‘learned Florentine collector’. Interestingly, Casolani’s name is spelled wrong on the front and back of the sheet. Perhaps this Florentine was not entirely at home in classical languages after all. Byam Shaw (1976), who found the same sort of annotations on twelve sheets in Christ Church, Oxford, dubbed the inscription ‘the Greek Inscription’. According to Lugt, it appears on twenty-three dispersed drawings by various artists, often preceded by a number.^[6] The Rotterdam sheet can now be added to this group.