Standing Draped Male Figure

Standing Draped Male Figure

Baldassarre Franceschini (il Volterrano)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This animated study was drawn in preparation for the figure of Saint John the Evangelist in Franceschini's vault fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin in the Niccolini Chapel of Santa Croce, Florence, executed between 1652 and 1660.Commissioned by the Marchese Filippo Niccolini, this important project also included frescoes of the sibyls on the pendentives, and was regarded as one of the artist's masterpieces by his contemporaries, rivalling the work of Correggio and Giovanni Lanfranco. It was carefully described by Volterrano's earliest biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, in 1681. This drawing illustrates the diligent process by which the artist studied the foreshortened poses of the numerous figures in the composition from living nude models. Drawings such as this enabled Franceschini to paint perspectivally complex frescoes, for which he was much admired during his lifetime. Here the rapidly drawn sketch defines the pose and sets the figure in space, corrected for the anticipated vantage point of the viewer.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.