The Dead Christ Supported by Three Figures

The Dead Christ Supported by Three Figures

Giovanni Battista Naldini

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Naldini appears to have had a flair for bringing figures together in beautifully choreographed compositions, many of which he designed to embellish churches in Florence and Rome. His strong, yet mellifluous drawings reflect the influences of Michelangelo, Pontormo, and Andrea del Sarto. Naldini trained in Pontormo's workshop from 1549 to 1556. The effects of this formative experience are evident in his manner of drawing with bold scribbly contours as well as with a neatly volumetric conception of form and closely intertwined figural groups. The composition of this drawing strongly recalls that of Michelangelo's marble sculpture "Pietà with Saints" (1550–55) in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence. The attribution to the artist was made by Philip Pouncey in 1958, when the drawing was in the collection of Walter C. Baker, who had acquired it as the work of Palma Giovane. Another study by Naldini for the composition, with the bearing figures indicated as winged angels, is in a private collection in Paris (formerly C. R. Rudolf collection, London; repr. Il primato del disegno, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 1980, p. 152, no. 328).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Dead Christ Supported by Three FiguresThe Dead Christ Supported by Three FiguresThe Dead Christ Supported by Three FiguresThe Dead Christ Supported by Three FiguresThe Dead Christ Supported by Three Figures

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.