Standing Nude Man (recto); Three Studies of Soldiers (verso)

Taddeo Zuccaro

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Along with his brother Federico, Taddeo Zuccaro was one of the leading mid-sixteenth-century painters in Rome, merging an admiration for the masters of the High Renaissance with elements of Mannerist design. In this powerful study of the nude male figure in action, he infused the close observation of naturalistic details with the heroic, sculptural monumentality of Michelangelo, who is said to have greatly admired the young Taddeo's gifts as a draftsman. Dating to about 1550, the study by Zuccaro is related to the figure of a soldier holding the reins of a horse in the foreground of a composition drawing (private collection) intended for a monochrome fresco on a (lost) palace façade in Rome. Though studied from life, the pose of the figure is partly inspired by the famous Roman marble group known as the Horse Tamers (Dioscuri), today on the Quirinal Hill.

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