Saint Antoninus Kneeling before the Crucifix in Orsanmichele, Florence

Bernardino Poccetti

1600–1605 · Charcoal and brush and pale brown wash on beige paper; squared in red chalk · Drawings and Prints

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.

Artist

Bernardino Poccetti

Date

1600–1605

Medium

Charcoal and brush and pale brown wash on beige paper; squared in red chalk

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of John Steiner, 1974