Study of a Reclining Man

Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin, Jacopo Robusti) (in circa 1575-1590)

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Specifications

Title	Study of a Reclining Man
Material and technique	Black chalk, heightened with white, on (discoloured) blue paper
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 205 mm Width 297 mm
Artists	Draughtsman: Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Comin, Jacopo Robusti)
Accession number	I 404 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1575-1590
Watermark	Shield, horizontally divided, inscribed with double curl in the upper section, surmounted by an inverted initial F (right) and the number 8 (left)(c. 56x38 mm, near the center, on P5of 8P, vV, folio sheet), the shield (without the marks on top) similar to Briquet 862 (Solothurn, between Bern and Basel, 1573-77). [see image]
Inscriptions	'31' (below left, pen and red ink), '60' (verso, below right, pencil, squared), '30' or '38' (?) (verso, below center, pencil, upside down)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a)
Provenance	Art dealer Julius W. Böhler (1883-1966), Lucerne; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1929; D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	none
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. 1830 (see also no. 1819) (workshop); Chicago 1997, p. 239, under no. 311; Rossi 1984, pp. 66, 68, 71 n. 55, fig. 21 (Domenico); Forlani Tempesti 1991, p. 141; Rearick 1996, p. 178 (Jacopo); Folds McCullagh/Giles 1997, p. 239, under no. 311 (Jacopo); Rossi 2011, p. 81 (Domenico); Marciari 2018, p. 164 n. 16 (Domenico)
Material	Black chalk > Chalk > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Blue paper > Coloured paper > Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Technique	Highlight > Painting technique > Technique > Material and technique
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe
Place of manufacture	Venice > Veneto region > Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Albert Elen

This rather damaged drawing was listed in the Böhler and Koenigs collections as a work by Jacopo Tintoretto, but was subsequently declassified by Tietze/Tietze-Conrat (1944), who considered it to be by the same member of the Tintoretto workshop who drew a similar foreshortened study of a reclining male nude, now in Frankfurt.^[1] Rossi (1984, 2011) attributes our drawing to Domenico Tintoretto (1560-1635), whereas Rearick (1996) considers it a work by Jacopo. It was probably made in the same life drawing session as a very similar drawing on blue paper now in Chicago.^[2] The two sheets must afterwards have been kept together in a workshop folder that was damaged by water, judging from the common stains. These stains are also found on another similar study on blue paper of a reclining male nude, likewise foreshortened but seen from a different angle, in Rotterdam (I 403). Moreover, the Rotterdam sheets have old consecutive numbering (31 and 32) in red ink at lower left, which indicates that they were once part of a larger group and have since stayed together.^[3]A fourth related drawing, either by Jacopo or Domenico, is now in a private collection in New York. There the figure’s head rests on a cushion.^[4]

The foreshortened reclining figure in these drawings derives from the corpse at lower left in Jacopo Tintoretto’s The Finding of the Body of St Mark, painted for the Scuola Grande di San Marco (1562-66), and now in Milan, which in its turn goes back on The Lamentation of Christ (1480) by Andrea Mantegna (c.1431-1506) now also in Milan.^[5] The drawings were probably all made at least a decade afterwards, during one or more life drawing sessions in the workshop in the second half of the 1570s or even the 1580s,^[6]and later reused for the painting Dead Christ with Angels (c.1590-95), now in Basel, which is either by Domenico or an unknown follower of Jacopo.^[7]John Marciari noticed the solidity and structure of the underlying musculature in the Rotterdam study, typical of Jacopo, as opposed to similar studies by Domenico from the same life drawing sessions, which concentrate on the silhouette and body surface of the nude model.^[8]

Footnotes

^[1]Städel Museum, inv. 4420 (as Domenico Tintoretto); Von Hadeln 1922, no. 50, ill.; Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. 1819.

^[2]Art Institute of Chicago, inv. 1966.23 (as Jacopo Tintoretto); Folds McCullagh/Giles 1997, no. 311, ill. The stain is visible on an old black-and-white photograph in the museum’s documentation file; it was afterwards removed during conservation treatment.

^[3]This red numbering (‘34’) is also found on inv. I 400, 401, 402, 405, which were once kept together in a collector’s portfolio.

^[4]Leon Black Collection; Marciari 2018, p. 150, fig. 118 (Jacopo); Koshikawa 2020, p. 250 (Domenico, late 1590s). A similar drawing of the figure in more or less mirrored position was sold in London (Sotheby’s) 02 July 1997, lot 48 (as Jacopo Tintoretto); it has clumsily added shading along the contours and is certainly not by Jacopo or one of his more talented pupils.

^[5]Pinacoteca di Brera, inv. 143; De Vecchi 1970, no. 162 B, ill.; Pallucchini/Rossi 1982, no. 244, figs. 325, 327; Madrid 2007, fig. 17.

^[6]This dating is congruent with the watermark, which is of an uncommon type (bisected shield with a double curl in the upper half), present in documents in Solothurn in north-west Switzerland, dated 1573-77. A sixth drawing, now in the British Museum (inv. 1907,0717.15) probably also belongs to this group, although the foreshortening is less drastic, the figure almost sitting instead of reclining.

^[7]Kunstmuseum, inv. 511; Marciari 2018, pp. 150-51, figs. 118, 119 respectively.

^[8]Observed during a visit to the museum in September 2017.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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