Currently not on view
Kneeling male nude with various sketches,
ca. 1556–66
Taddeo Zuccaro, 1529–1566; born Sant'Angelo in Vado; died Rome
x1953-38
This dynamic sheet is filled on both sides with an array of drawings, ranging from exploratory sketches to geometric doodles. The kneeling male nude on the recto is a preliminary study for the lame beggar in Zuccaro’s fresco Saint Paul Healing the Cripple, one of several scenes from the life of Saint Paul in the Frangipani Chapel in San Marcello al Corso, Rome. The figure of the cripple is striking for its vigorous pose, bold parallel hatching, and expressive contours and testifies to the influence of Michelangelo’s crouching nudes at the bottom of his Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel (1536–41).
Information
Title
Kneeling male nude with various sketches
Dates
ca. 1556–66
Maker
Medium
Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash over black chalk on tan laid paper; verso: Pen and brown ink with touches of brush and brown wash on tan laid paper
Dimensions
27.9 × 29.8 cm (11 × 11 3/4 in.)
frame: 53.3 × 53.3 × 4 cm (21 × 21 × 1 9/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
Object Number
x1953-38
Marks/Labels/Seals
Watermark: Large dagger (not documentable)
Reference Numbers
Gibbons 706
Culture
Materials
Attribution changed on recommendation of P. Pouncey, 1966.;
Tentative reaction of Philip Pouncey, April, 1965, when he saw the drawing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: very possibly by Taddeo Zuccaro. Information relayed by Miss Linda Boyer.;- "Acquisitions," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 13, no. 2, (1954): p. 62-63., p. 62
- Janos Scholz, "Italian Drawings in the Art Museum of Princeton University," Burlington Magazine 109 no. 770 (May, 1967): p. 290-299., p. 293
- Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)., Vol. 1: p. 198, no. 637 (illustrated in Vol. 2 under the same catalog number)
- E. James Mundy and Elizabeth Ourusoff de Fernandez-Gimenez, Renaissance into baroque: Italian master drawings by the Zuccari, 1550-1600, (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Museum; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989)., no. 17 (illus.)
- Cristina Acidini Luchinat, Taddeo e Federico Zuccari: fratelli pittori del Cinquecento, (Milano: Jandi Sapi, 1998-1999). , vol. 1: pp. 71-72, figs. 19, 20
- Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 44, cat. no. 17; p. 45 (illus.); p. 46 (verso illus.); p. 257-258, app. no. 86; p. 258 (illus.)
