Isaac Kneeling on a Sacrificial Block (after 'The Sacrifice of Isaac')

Author: Klazina Botke

Between 1525 and 1530, Andrea del Sarto painted three versions of The Sacrifice of Isaac, all on panel and based on the same cartoon, a fragment of which survives in Stockholm.^[1] The first is unfinished, and is now in Cleveland. Dresden holds a larger, completed panel and Madrid has a smaller version.^[2] Recent research with the aid of infrared reflectography (IRR) has revealed that the painting in Dresden was completed while Del Sarto was still working on the version in Madrid.^[3] All three versions are of the dramatic scene when God puts Abraham’s faith to the test by asking him to sacrifice his only son Isaac.^[4] As he rests one knee on the sacrificial altar, Isaac’s terror is evident in his face. Del Sarto was a master at capturing emotions – one of the reasons why his work was so frequently copied.^[5] In the Rotterdam drawing, the figure of Isaac is isolated and has been accurately copied. In contrast to the cartoon fragment in Stockholm and the panel in Cleveland, the anguished expression, the mouth slightly open, corresponds with the physiognomy in the two finished versions of the painting; the sacrificial altar comes closest to the one in the version in Dresden, so it is possible that the drawing was copied from that one.

We know for certain that the drawing is a copy and not a preliminary study because of a small detail behind Isaac’s back, where three fingers of Abraham’s left hand can be seen resting on Isaac’s left hand. A detail like this would not occur on an original study for an individual figure. The copyist must have been familiar with Del Sarto’s drawing style and endeavoured to match the Florentine master’s technique. Using fine, regular hatching in red chalk, he depicted the muscles of the torso and combined them with more strongly defined outlines and rougher hatching around the figure.^[6]

Another interesting detail is that, to judge by a small rectangular area of damage to the sheet, Isaac’s genitals had at some time been covered over with a slip of paper. The censorship of nude figures by later owners or collectors was not unusual and occurred as early as the late sixteenth century. A leaf of a tree has been added to the painting in Dresden to make the scene more chaste. When that was done to this drawing, and when this addition was removed again, is not known. The sheet also suffered in other ways. The bottom edge is damaged, so that Isaac’s foot has largely been lost, and the paper has been torn in four places at the top edge.