Study for 'The Entombment'

Author: Klazina Botke

Giovanni Baglione (1566-1643) wrote in 1642 that the work of Federico Barocci was not only ‘virtuous and pious’ but also ‘led the heart of the viewer to devotion’.^[1] This sentiment is beautifully illustrated by this intimate and moving depiction of Christ’s lifeless body. The drawing is a preliminary study for Barocci’s famous Entombment altarpiece in the church of Santa Croce in Senigallia, a work of great intensity and emotional power. The artist received the commission in 1579 from the  Confraternità delle Croce e Sagramento, and completed it three years later.^[2] He may have based his design on The Entombment by Raphael (1483-1520), which is now in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. He must certainly have seen that painting when it was still in the church of San Francesco in Perugia.^[3] Barocci made numerous preliminary studies for this altarpiece, as he did for all his paintings. He often decided first on the form of a composition and then worked out each individual figure through various chalk studies. He followed this with more composition studies before finally making one or more full-sized bozzetti in oils.

The Rotterdam drawing is one of the early preliminary studies for The Entombment. Christ’s body is positioned in the same direction as in Raphael’s altarpiece, as it is in the studies in Berlin and Florence.^[4] The same applies to a study of John the Baptist for this composition, which also comes from the Koenigs Collection (I 427).^[5] It is only in later drawings, such as the sheet in Princeton, that Barocci reversed the composition,^[6] which explains why he squared the Rotterdam sheet, for ease of transfer.

The figure of Christ was very probably based on a model lying in a hammock in the painter’s studio.^[7] Barocci often adjusted his models while he was drawing them, with the result that in their final form they sprang partly from a combination of reality and his own imagination. He also gradually perfected all the details in many separate studies. For instance, there are two more drapery studies for Christ’s loincloth on the right in the Rotterdam sheet. There are also at least fifty other known drawings in Berlin and Florence in which he perfected hands, feet, draperies and poses for The Entombment.^[8]

There are several surviving composition drawings in addition to the many detail studies. In Florence, for example, there is part of an early composition sketch, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a complete composition drawing in charcoal with white heightening (by Barocci and workshop), in Los Angeles a cartone per i lumi (drawing defining the light and shaded passages), and finally a pen drawing of the entire composition in Chicago.^[9] There is still no consensus over the attribution of two late oil sketches on canvas, now in Urbino and a private collection. John Marciari and Ian Verstegen argued that they are bozzetti for The Entombment, while Babette Bohn and Judith Mann regarded them as later copies after the altarpiece that were made in Barocci’s workshop.^[10]