Male Nude Half Figure with Raised Arms, Facing Right

Author: Surya Stemerding

The half-length male nude in this drawing has raised his arms in a defensive, parrying pose. The object concealed in his balled left hand could be a stone, a knife or a stick. His face is in lost profile, with only the contour of his cheek and chin visible, together with his eyelashes and part of his nose, but not his mouth. It is not clear whether this is a preliminary study or a copy after part of a painting, print or drawing. The pose suggests a position to the left of a main scene.

For a long time this sheet was attributed to an anonymous artist from the circle of Annibale Carracci (1560-1609), but stylistically a Tuscan artist from the closing decades of the sixteenth century would be a more plausible candidate.^[1] The head with its striking profile recalls figure studies in red chalk by Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), such as a sheet with a kneeling figure of around 1522-26 in Los Angeles.^[2] The draughtsmanship here is more fluid, though, and lacks the forceful hatching with which Del Sarto up built his surfaces. A drawing in black and red chalk of a seated man seen from behind with his head averted, auctioned in 2013 as a work by Domenico Cresti (called Il Passignano, 1559-1638), displays some affinity with the Rotterdam study. The similarities can be seen in both the detailed depiction of the hands and the hatching that follows the curvature of the body, creating a subtle shift in contrast.^[3]

From the point of view of anatomy, the most serious shortcomings in the Rotterdam drawing are the lack of cohesion between the shoulder blades, the vertebrae and the bundle of muscles in the twisted torso. One thinks, then, of a less skilled artist who was not drawing from life but from an inanimate object.