Nude Male Figure with Upraised Right Arm

Girolamo Romanino

1550–60 · Brush and brown wash, over slight traces of black chalk · Drawings and Prints

The historical attribution of this drawing to Romanino is due to the Milanese Eighteenth-century collector and connoisseur Sebastiano Resta, who annotated the sheet on top "Gerolamo Romanino Prattico / Pittore Bresciano" (Resta's autography was recognized by Carmen Bambach and endorsed by Alessandro Nova in 2005, see here Bibliography). Jacob Bean accepted Florence Kossoff's proposal that this might have been a preparatory study for the figure of Adam in the scene of Christ's Descent into Limbo, painted by Romanino between 1534-35 in a fresco cycle for the church of Santa Maria della Neve, Pisogne. The drawing, like the Pisogne fresco, probably dates from the last decade of Romanino's life (the previously published date of ca. 1574 seems incorrect in view of the artist's probable death date). In Carmen Bambach's opinion, the resemblance between the drawing and Pisogne fresco seems generic rather than direct; the poses and physical types of the male figures seem quite different. (Furio Rinaldi, 2014, based on a curatorial remark by Carmen C. Bambach of June, 2005)

Artist

Girolamo Romanino

Date

1550–60

Medium

Brush and brown wash, over slight traces of black chalk

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1961