Saint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, Florence

Saint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, Florence

Bernardino Poccetti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walter Vitzthum in 1955 identified this drawing as a study for one of the lunette-shaped frescoes representing scenes from the life of the Dominican archbishop of Florence, Saint Antoninus, painted by Poccetti ca. 1602-1604 in the cloister of Saint Antoninus of the Dominican priory of Saint Mark in Florence. In both the drawing and the fresco Poccetti gives an accurate view of the interior of Orsanmichele with a side view of Andrea Orcagna's tabernacle in the background. There are other studies related to this composition in the Uffizi and in Berlin (see Hamilton 1980, pp. 74-77). The old and certainly correct attribution to Poccetti is due to the collector who annotated his drawings with the artist's name, first in Greek and then in Italian. James Byam Shaw, in discussing the twelve drawings at Christ Church, Oxford, that bear such annotations, remarks that the use of Greek letters seems to have been an affectation of Florentine scholar-collectors from the middle of the sixteenth century. A Scene of Martyrdom in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. Masson 2381) is correctly attributed to Poccetti in a Greek annotation by the same hand.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, FlorenceSaint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, FlorenceSaint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, FlorenceSaint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, FlorenceSaint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, Florence

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.