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Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Design for a "Spandrel" with Grotesques; Alternate Study for Lunette-Shaped Central Section. Verso: Sheet of Studies: TThree Figures Before a Niche Containing a Statue of Fame, Flanked by Hercules and Another Male Heroic Nude; Man Peering Through a Hole and Colonnade with Statue

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Italian School
16th century

Design for a "Spandrel" with Grotesques; Alternate Study for Lunette-Shaped Central Section. Verso: Sheet of Studies: TThree Figures Before a Niche Containing a Statue of Fame, Flanked by Hercules and Another Male Heroic Nude; Man Peering Through a Hole and Colonnade with Statue

ca. 1538-1547
4 1/8 x 5 15/16 inches (105 x 150 mm)
Pen and dark brown ink, over red chalk, on paper. Verso: pen and dark brown ink, brown wash, over red chalk.
II, 28a

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

Notes
Watermark: none.
One of thirty four sixteenth-century Italian drawings formerly mounted in a nineteenth-century album, the Cesare da Sesto Album.
The Morgan Library owns a drawing by Girolamo Romanino depicting a series of studies of a figure within an oculus, similar to the figure at upper right on the verso of this sheet (1985.94).
Description

One of a group of drawings by the same hand, once part of the Casare da Sesto album, but not by him.1 The sheets contain several studies for wall and ceiling decorations, particularly grotesques. The sketches appear to be aide-mémoires, which are labeled with their city of origin (Florence, Rome, Genoa, Cremona, and Trent). The three-quarter length man leaning from an oculus seems to derive from a drawing by Girolamo Romanino, which is also in the Morgan’s collection.2

Footnotes:

  1. Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv. II 26a, 27a, 29a.
  2. Morgan Library & Museum, New York, inv.1985.94.
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed at upper right, in pen and brown ink: "Roma"; at lower right, in pen and brown ink: "Genua / genua (?)"; on verso, at lower right, in pen and brown ink: "Cremona in foro".
Associated names
Romanino, Girolamo, approximately 1485-approximately 1566, Formerly attributed to.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Bibliography
Selected references: Fairfax Murray 1905-12, 2: no. tk, (as Cesare da Sesto).
Artist
Italian School
Classification
Drawing
Century Drawings
16th century
School
Italian
Catalog link
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Department
Drawings and Prints