Figure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of Onlookers

Figure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of Onlookers

Bernardino Poccetti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

It was Philip Pouncey who in 1958 recognized the hand of Poccetti in this drawing, which had previously been classified as anonymous Florentine. Pouncey pointed out that the group of figures in the lower half of the sheet are studied for the 'Death of Saint Buonagiunta Manetti' at the Altar of the Servite Monastery at Monte Senario, a fresco by Poccetti datable to 1612 in the Chiostro dei Morti of the Santissima Annunziata, Florence. This scene is one of fourteen incidents from the history of the Order of the Servants of Mary painted by Poccetti in the last years of his life from 1604 to 1612 in the large cloister of their monastery of Santissima Annunziata in Florence. The Metropolitan Museum owns a total of four drawings by Poccetti which are also related to his important fresco cycle in the Annunziata: see inv. nos. 61.178.2 (the Death of Saint Alexis Falconieri), 64.48.1 (Saint Philip Benizi Converting two Women at Todi) and 200.91.1 (Seated Figure and Sanding Figure). Paul C. Hamilton has supplied a very complete account of the many surviving preparatory drawings for the project in his catalogue of the 1980 exhibition of drawings by Poccetti in the Uffizi (see Hamilton 1980, pp. 78-92). The purpose of the sketches at the top of this sheet is unclear, but Hamilton points out that the dancing figure at upper right is studied in a red chalk sketch in the Uffizi (inv. no 8395 F; Hamilton, 1980, no. 103, fig. 109).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Figure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of OnlookersFigure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of OnlookersFigure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of OnlookersFigure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of OnlookersFigure Studies: Woman holding a Shield, a Dancing Female, and a Priest Supported at an Altar before a Group of Onlookers

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.