Study after Michelangelo's Giorno (recto and verso)

Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Working from a small replica of Michelangelo's statue of "Day" on the tomb of Giuliano de' Medici in the New Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence, Jacopo Tintoretto has copied on both recto and verso the back view of the figure. Another double-sided study of the back of the statue, though seen from a quite different angle, is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (see: Tietze, 1944, no. 1739). At Christ Church, Oxford, there is a double-faced study of the figure seen from above (Byam Shaw, 1976, vol. 1, no. 762, pls. 442,443, as Jacopo Tintoretto or studio). Tintoretto was a great admirer of Michelangelo and drew many copies after his sculptures. The unusual-and impossible-viewpoint of this study of Michelangelo's Day from the tomb of Giuliano de Medici in the New Sacristy, S. Lorenzo, Florence, reveals that Tintoretto was working not from the original but from a small model. He must have studied the model in brightly lit conditions to achieve the strong contrasts of light and dark that characterize his drawings of sculpture.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art