Study of Standing Bearded Man and Three Young Men

Author: Klazina Botke

The focus in this study is on the lavish draperies worn by a bearded man. He is shown full length in a voluminous garment as he leans against a balustrade or wall. He is loosely clasping a stick in his right hand. His garb, bare feet and full beard suggest that he is a prophet or another biblical figure. Behind the balustrade, and shown in less detail, are three other figures. One of them has turned his head towards the old man, as if they are having a conversation. The scene is probably a fragment of a larger composition, but it is not clear whether it is a copy after an existing work or a preliminary study for a painting.

Koenigs acquired the drawing as a work by Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530). Freedberg (1963), though, believed that it was more likely to be a free copy after Del Sarto by Giovanni Battista Naldini (1537-1591). That attribution was based on the idea that this drawing and three other red chalk studies in the Koenigs Collection were a group of copies after Del Sarto’s frescoes in Florence.^[1] This particular sheet, though, is clearly by a different hand, and also cannot be linked to an existing painting by the master. As the style of drawing does not match Naldini’s work, either, it can best be described as Florentine c.1600.^[2] Catherine Monbeig Goguel recently suggested that it could also come from the circle of Giovanni Battista Vanni (1599-1660) or Ottaviano Vannini (1585-c.1643).^[3]