Two Studies of a Seated Male Nude Seen from the Back
Cherubino Alberti (Zaccaria Mattia)
1596–1602 · Red chalk, with some contours reinforced in pen and brown ink. Upper right corner replaced · Drawings and Prints
The nude figure above holds the sawlike "bretessed bend" that figures, with six stars, in the arms of Pope Clement VIII Aldobrandini (1536-1605, r. 1592-1605). Many such nude figures holding these emblems appear, in large or small scale, in the frescoed vault of the Sala Clementina in the Vatican Palace painted between 1596 and 1602 by the brothers Giovanni and Cherubino Alberti. The dismembered sketchbook from which this drawing came contained at least five other chalk studies of 'ignudi' associable with the Sala Clementina vault fresco. In addition, there are studies for these nude figures in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan (see: Bora, 1976, no. 149, as Giovanni Alberti) and in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1977, pp. 271-2; repr, Bollettino d'arte, LXV, 5, 1980, p. 51, fig. 22, as Giovanni Alberti).
- Artist
- Cherubino Alberti (Zaccaria Mattia)
- Date
- 1596–1602
- Medium
- Red chalk, with some contours reinforced in pen and brown ink. Upper right corner replaced
- Department
- Drawings and Prints
- Credit line
- Harry G. Sperling Fund, 1980
