Standing Virgin with Child

Author: Esmé van der Krieke

The elongated body, the elegant curve at the hip and the Virgin’s egg-shaped head in this red chalk drawing of the Virgin and Child are typical features of Florentine Mannerism. The drawing was therefore initially attributed to Pontormo (1494-1557).^[1] Berenson then suggested Rosso Fiorentino (1495-1540) as the maker.^[2] Both artists made frequent use of red chalk and worked, just like in our drawing, with fluid lines and fine, dense hatching. Nevertheless, according to Cox Rearick the work was made neither by Pontormo nor by Rosso, but by the less well-known Florentine artist Pier Francesco Foschi.^[3] Foschi also worked in a Mannerist style, and until the mid-sixteenth century undertook a number of works of art for various Florentine churches and clients.^[4] And yet this artist, in part because of limited mentions in Vasari’s Vite and the fact that until 1957 his name was misinterpreted as ‘Toschi’, was long consigned to oblivion.^[5]

Consequently, little is known about Foschi as a draughtsman. The most important stylistic characteristics of his drawings are described in an article by Myril Pouncey, in which five drawings are attributed to him.^[6] Two of these sheets, one in Oxford^[7] and the other sold at auction in New York,^[8] depict a Virgin with a face almost identical to the one in our drawing. In all three drawings the oval face is depicted with barely worked out eyes, a long nose, the corners of the mouth turned down, and a slight shadow between the mouth and the chin. The shape of the mantle, executed with compact, diagonal hatching, likewise corresponds. The drawings in Oxford and New York are dated to around 1520 and 1525. Given the evident likeness to those sheets it is very possible that Foschi is also the maker of our drawing, which he probably also made in the 1520s.

On the verso of the drawing a woman’s face and a hand are drawn, but these are probably by another artist at a later date.