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Some Drawings from the Antique attributed to Pisanello

G. F. Hill

Papers of the British School at Rome / Volume 3 / January 1906, pp 296 - 303 DOI: 10.1017/S0068246200005043, Published online: 09 August 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0068246200005043

How to cite this article: G. F. Hill (1906). Some Drawings from the Antique attributed to Pisanello. Papers of the British School at Rome, 3, pp 296-303 doi:10.1017/S0068246200005043

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VOL. III. No. 4

SOME DRAWINGS FROM THE ANTIQUE ATTRIBUTED TO PISANELLO

BY G. F. HILL, M.A.

LONDON: 1905 SOME DRAWINGS FROM THE ANTIQUE ATTRIBUTED TO PISANELLO.

A CERTAIN number of the drawings ascribed to Pisanello, both in the Recueil Vallardi in the and elsewhere, are copies, more or less free, of antique originals.1 The doubts which have been expressed, by Courajod among others, as to the authenticity of some of these drawings are fully justified in the case of those which reproduce ancient coins. Thus we have, on fol. 12. no. 2266 v° of the Recueil Vallardi, a coin with the head of Augustus wearing a radiate crown, inscribed DIVVS AVGVSTVS PATER, and a head of young Heracles in a lion's skin, doubtless taken from a tetradrachm of Alexander the Great. Similar in style and on paper with the same watermark (a triple mount) are four coins : a laureate head of Augustus (?) ; a radiate head of Augustus ; a head of young Heracles in a lion's skin ; and a bearded head of Heracles. These have no serious claim to be called the work of Pisanello, and the heads of Severina (Fig. 1) and Aurelian (fol. 97 no. 2591, 98 no. 2592 ) are equally doubtful. The lettering of the former, however, belongs to the time of Pisanello. Equally coarse in style, and unworthy of the artist, is a head of Hadrian (fol. 99 no. 2593, Fig. 2). As the treatment -of the tie of the wreath shows, it is copied from a relief, probably on a coin which was somewhat worn ; for the drawing does not show the short curly hair on the forehead character- istic of the Emperor. Finally, we have on a sheet in the His de la Salle collection2 a head of Faustina the Elder under a gothic arch. The sheet is signed PISANVS HOC OPVS, and is perhaps genuine. If .so, it is the only extant instance of a copy of a coin made by Pisanello ; and it is sig- nificant that it is not treated in a medallic manner. This is one of the facts 1 I have discussed these drawings briefly in my volume on Pisanello, pp. 20 ff. In the present paper the views there expressed are modified in the sense that some of the drawings previously accepted as Pisanello's I now regard as works of a pupil. 2 Both de Tauzia, Notice des Dessins de la Coll. His de la Salle, no. 81. 298 THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME.

which disprove the attempt to show that the first master of the modern was inspired by ancient coins. But if the drawings from ancient coins assigned to him must, with one possible exception, be discredited, there remains an interesting series of

FIG. I.—HEAD OF SKVERINA. From the Recueil Vallardi (Louvre). studies from the antique, mostly made in Rome, which have considerable merit and attraction. In the case of those illustrated here, it is true that it is not possible to attribute them to Pisanello1 himself; but they at any 1 Pisanello was in Rome, working at St. John Lateran, in 1431 and 1432. Whether he ever visited it again for any length of lime is doubtful. SOME DRAWINGS FROM THE ANTIQUE. 299 rate belong to his school and to his time. Thus, as documents for the history of the originals from which they are copied, their value is not lessened by any doubt as to their exact attribution.

FIG. 2.—HEAD OK HADRIAN. From the Recueil Vallardi (Louvre).

I pass over those of which the originals have been identified, such as the copy at of one of the Dioscuri of the Quirinal. Nor can I illustrate an exquisite drawing, of undoubted authenticity, which is preserved in the 300 THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME.

University Galleries at Oxford, and will eventually appear in Mr. Sidney Colvin's publication of the Oxford drawings. On the recto are costume studies ; on the verso, two pen-and-ink sketches of Bacchanals, probably from a sarcophagus. One of them moves to the right, looking back, and playing a tympanum held before her ; the other, also to the right, has her head thrown up and her hands raised above it, playing the same instrument.1 These, though slight, are in some ways quite the best of Pisanello's studies of the kind. On the verso of the Berlin sheet 13592 (PI. XXXI., Fig. 1) is the figure of a recumbent river-god holding a decorated cornucopiae. The treatment of the cornucopiae and the attitude in general prove that this is nothing else than the well-known Tiber (Fig. 3) which forms a pendant to the Nile on the Piazza of the Capitol, although I can find no recognition in print of this somewhat obvious fact. Under the right arm of the figure, but evidently not connected with it, is a sketch of a small boy—possibly suggested by an Eros torturing a butterfly—and on the same sheet is a figure of a putto leaning on a knotted staff—probably from an Eros or Hypnos with inverted torch. The Tiber, as is well known, was once a Tigris,3 and had under its right arm a tiger, instead of the present wolf and twins. Originally with the Nile on Monte Cavallo, it was transferred to the Capitol between 1513 and 1527 ; and somewhat later, probably between 1565 and 1568, the attribute was altered. The Heemskerck drawing (1533-1536) pub- lished by Michaelis shows that the tiger was in fairly good condition, so that its omission on our drawing was not due to any difficulty in making it out, but merely to the selection of the artist. It will be noticed that in his treatment of the head of the river-god the artist has not been restrained by any desire to reproduce the character of

1 Compare with the former such figures as are found in Clarac, ii. PI. CXXVII, no. 421, or in the dal Pozzo drawings in the British Museum (Dept. of Gr. and Rom. Ant.), fol. 57 ; with the latter, dal Pozzo, fol. 58. But the correspondences are not exact. 2 Jahrb. d. preuss. Kunslsamml. ii. p. xxxxv. This and the other Berlin drawing to be men- tioned presently are probably from the same hand as the two drawings in the British Museum, recently published by Mr. A. M. Hind (L'Arte 1005, pp. 210 f.). Apart from general resemblances of style, compare the right hand of the Tiber-statue with those of the standing figure (L'Arte 1905, p. 211) and of the St. Anthony (Hill, Pisanello, PI. 43); and the hands of the figures in the boar-hunt (PI. XXXI., Fig. 2) with that of the figure holding an eagle (VArte 1905, p. 210). 3 See Michaelis, Rom. Mitth. 1891, pp. 26, 33, 61 ; 1898, pp. 254 f. ; cp. Lanciani, Ruins and Excavations, p. 296. SOME DRAWINGS FROM THE ANTIQUE. 301 the antique ; subject and pose alone seem to have interested him. The same attitude towards the model is betrayed by two other drawings, one at Berlin (1358, PI. XXXI., Fig. 2), the other in the Recueil Vallardi (fol. 194, no. 2397. v°, PI. XXXII.). The latter1 contains three figures, which have usually been described as a ' mythological subject' or ' allegory after the antique.' As a matter of fact the three figures are borrowed from three

FIG. 3.—THE TIBER-STATUE OK THE CAPITOL.

different works of art; whether they were meant to be regarded as a composition may be doubted. On the right is a Hercules grasping a club in an impossibly ineffective way, which suggests that the original has been misunderstood. And in fact it is taken from an Orestes on a sarcophagus, possibly that which until recently was in the Palazzo Giustiniani, and of

1 Probably from the same hand as the two Berlin drawings. 302 THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME.

which Raphael made use, or else the sarcophagus now in the Cathedral at Husillos near Palencia.1 The reproduction here given (Fig. 4) from the latter will make this clear. On the original the right arm of Orestes is broken away, so that the copyist was free to restore the figure as Hercules.

FIG. 4.—ORESTES. From the Sarcophagus at Husillos. (After Robert.)

The middle figure in the sheet is a Venus from the Adonis sarcophagus now at (Fig. s).2 This is known to have been at Rome in the middle of the sixteenth century ; our drawing takes its history back another century or more. The third figure is also evidently from the antique, but I have failed to identify the original. The Berlin drawing (PI. XXXI., Fig. 2) has been described as a copy from a sarcophagus in the Campo Santo at .3 There are, however, important differences between the two ; and Prof. Robert, to whom I submitted my doubts, points out that the original is much more probably to be found in the same Adonis sarcophagus as supplied the Venus. The group is reproduced for comparison from the Pighianus (Fig. 5). ' There are, it is true, divergences ; out of the two mutilated huntsmen behind the boar he has made a single figure, and he has turned the attacking dog in the opposite direction ; but still the agreement, especially with the drawing of the Pighianus, which is without the restorations, is so great, that the

1 C. Robert, Sarkophagreliefs, vol. ii. nos. 156, 157, PI. LV. 2 Robert, vol. iii. no. 20, PI. V. 3 Lasinio, PI. 109. SOME DRAWINGS FROM THE ANTIQUE. 303 identity appears to me to be assured.' The drawing, having been assigned to Pisanello himself, has been regarded as additional evidence of his con- nexion with Pisa. But that connexion is very doubtful. Vasari's state- ment that he worked and died there, made in the first edition of the

FIG. 5.—ADONIS SARCOPHAGUS AT MANTUA. From the Pighianus. (After Robert.)

' Lives,' is omitted in the second, and the other evidence in the same direction will not bear examination.1 Now we see that even if the Berlin drawing were by Pisanello, it would be no evidence in favour of his having worked at Pisa. In any case the history of this sarcophagus also is taken back to the first half of the fifteenth century.

1 Hill, Pisanello, p. 5. P. B. S, R. III. PI. XXXI IIXXX Td "III H S a