Seated Man with an Instrument (Astrolabe?)

Author: Rhoda Eitel-Porter

This impressive, fascinating drawing of a seated male figure clothed in what resembles classical drapery continues to present questions, many of which are likely to remain unresolved. For one, the subject remains elusive. The figure is seated on what appears to be a ledge, indicated by two horizontal lines at right, while his bare feet touch the ground drawn in with a third line. He gestures towards a round object or disc with both hands or may be holding it with his right hand. Yet one might query whether the figure and object even belong together or are two separate studies. As was first proposed by Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt in 1968, the object is probably an astrolabe, in which case the freely drawn lines petering out at left represent the ribbon tied to a suspension ring on the ridge of the instrument.^[1] The main astronomical instruments before the telescope, astrolabes were used to tell time and to determine star positions at particular latitudes; at a time when the difference between astrology and astronomy was not yet defined, it was also used to predict astronomical events or personal horoscopes. By the fifteenth century astrolabes were well known in Italy and occasionally also found their way into art. Among the figures in the retinue of the magi in Filippino Lippi’s (1457-1504) Florentine Adoration of the Magi of 1496,^[2] is a kneeling older man wearing a sumptuous, fur-lined yellow robe. He clasps an astrolabe beneath his arm, alluding to the astrological knowledge of the magi and to the appearance of the star of Bethlehem.^[3] Another astrolabe is depicted in an illuminated manuscript of Ptolemy’s Geography from circa 1453 that once belonged to Cardinal Basilios Bessarion (1403-1472), where we see Ptolemy standing and taking measurements with an astrolabe.^[4] In consequence, the figure in the Rotterdam drawing might have been intended to represent Ptolemy or another astronomer, possibly as part of a cycle of uomini famosi (illustrious people) or as a representative of astronomy in a cycle of the seven liberal arts.^[5]

The drawing bears a tantalizing inscription on the verso, which might provide a clue to the drawing’s authorship, but has so far remained illegible.^[6] Classified as by Antonio Pollaiuolo (1433-1498) in the Resta-Somers inventory,^[7] at the time of its first publication in 1921, the drawing was attributed to Giovanni Bellini (active c.1459-1516), an attribution supported by Borenius, Von Hadeln and Fiocco among others. Borenius in 1926, however, already noted the influence of Andrea Mantegna (1430/1431-1506) and Donatello, and Dussler, in 1935, was the first to reject the attribution to Bellini. Tietze/Tietze-Conrat in their 1944 publication recognized ‘a certain resemblance to Donatello’s late Paduan period, or to works of his followers in that city’ and noted that former owner Archibald Russell, who acquired the sheet in 1918, apparently ‘suggested orally Donatello’.^[8] Degenhart and Schmitt, in their publication of 1968, were the first to propose a full attribution to Donatello. This found almost unanimous approval.^[9]

The distinctive style of draughtsmanship, with powerfully drawn lines in swinging curves with broken contours, lacking hatching and wash, and the expressiveness of the scowling figure in the Rotterdam drawing point to a group of studies variously associated with Giovanni Bellini, Andrea Mantegna and Donatello. Although the attributions of some of these drawings have continued to oscillate between Bellini and Mantegna, their respective styles have come more clearly into focus and have been distinguished from what might be by Donatello. Nonetheless, Donatello is thought to have played a formative role in Mantegna’s draughtsmanship, after the former settled in Padua in late 1443.^[10] The sheet was rubbed with red chalk to create a light pink shadow on parts of the paper, a technique common to many Florentine artists of the period.

Although there is not a single drawing that is unquestionably by Donatello, there is ample evidence that he made drawings. For one, a document of 14 April 1434 explicitly refers to a design by Donatello for a round window with a Coronation of the Virgin made for the cupola of the Florentine Duomo.^[11] Further, even though the Paduan humanist Pomponio Gaurico (c.1482-1530), born some twenty years after the artist, could not have known Donatello personally, he underscores the importance of drawing for Donatello in his treatise De Scultura, published in 1504. He reports that the favourite exhortation from Donatello to his pupils was to tell them to draw because ‘that is the whole foundation of sculpture’.^[12] Vasari (1511-1574) also speaks of Donatello’s drawings, describing the artist as a resolute, ‘risoluto’, and well-practised draughtsman who made drawings of unparalleled fiery boldness, ‘fierezza’.^[13] 

Among the various drawings attributed to Donatello, the one probably with the strongest claim to authenticity is a double-sided sheet in Rennes (fig.).^[14] On what is usually described as the recto, there is a fragment of a Massacre of the Innocents over a lightly sketched tabernacle at upper left with a figure of an angel drawn with a thin-nibbed pen. Clearly the composition once extended further to the right. On the verso is a standing figure representing David Triumphant (which bears clear similarities to Donatello’s bronze sculpture in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello). The David Triumphant side of the sheet is inscribed ‘donatello’ at lower right and ever since its earliest publication by Degenhart and Schmitt in 1968, this inscription is considered to be by Vasari (1511-1574), although the drawing is not, or no longer, on a Vasari mount.^[15] Degenhart and Schmitt compare this inscription and one by the same hand on the recto of the Rennes sheet, which reads ‘buonamico’, with secure inscriptions by Vasari on other drawings and manuscripts.^[16] ‘Buonamico’ is understood as a reference to the fourteenth-century painter Buonamico Buffalmacco (active c.1315-36). Degenhart and Schmitt conclude that Vasari believed that the Rennes recto is a copy after the now lost fresco by Buffalmacco mentioned by Vasari.^[17] It does of course slightly beg the question as to why the inscription accompanying the David should be seen as an attribution, whereas the one accompanying the Massacre is considered a reference to a source image, but this is indeed a possible scenario. Following Degenhart and Schmitt’s study the Rennes drawing is usually dated 1446-50.

Although significantly smaller than the Rennes Massacre, the Rotterdam drawing shares its loose draughtsmanship, where contours are firmly drawn but often left open, for instance below the knee in the Rotterdam figure and in the drapery of the crouching mother at lower right in the Rennes study. Parallel hatching is absent in the Rotterdam figure, and used only very sparingly in the Rennes drawing. Instead, there is a doubling of the line that is not a pentimento but adds movement to the design, seen especially often in the Rotterdam sheet, but also indicating, for example, the bent leg of the crouching mother in the foreground of the Rennes Massacre. The intensity of feeling communicated by the furrowed brow and sharp lines around the women’s eyes in the Massacre finds parallels in the features of the Rotterdam figure. The Rotterdam figure shares with Donatello’s Paduan low-reliefs the way bodies are delineated, with pronounced ovals for drapery-covered parts such as thighs or biceps and the strong articulation into shoulder, upper and lower arm.

Working backwards from secure drawings by Mantegna from his time after his encounter with Donatello also provides some support for an attribution to Donatello, for example if one compares the second figure from the left in St James Led to Martyrdom in London^[18] – the earliest known drawing by Mantegna of 1450-57 made for a fresco in the Ovetari Chapel in Padua – with the seated figure here. In both there is a pronounced ribcage and little differentiation between drapery and body, which seem to meld together. A comparison with the relief The Entombment of Christ, in Vienna,^[19] once thought to be by Donatello but more recently considered to be after Mantegna and from c.1480, also indicates strong similarities, vide the figure at upper right, gesturing toward the dead Christ. The swirling draperies also indicate an origin in the art of Donatello. Comparisons between drawings and sculpture are notoriously difficult, but if one takes for example the bronze relief Dead Christ Mourned by Two Angels from the altarpiece of the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua, of c.1447-50, there is a notable similarity to how the pectoral muscles are emphasized, the stomach, ribcage and thin upper arms drawn, and the thighs outlined in long sweeping ovals. Both feature narrow-set eyes and a haggard and expressive male face with a thin, long nose.

In short, the attribution to Donatello of the Rotterdam study remains entirely plausible. The style and the secular, humanist subject matter would align well with an origin during Donatello’s Paduan period of late 1443 to 1454.