Sunday, April 3, 2016

Drawings by Michelangelo, 16th century

Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel, drapery study for the Erythraean Sibyl
ca. 1508-12
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo, in the approved  manner of Florentine artists, made drapery studies like that above by soaking a length of fabric in liquid clay and then arranging it on a form in the studio. The amazing collection of Michelangelo drawings at the British Museum includes many works of preparation for the Sistine Chapel frescoes. These mostly entered the Museum about two hundred years ago, when such wondrous objects were still to be found floating about on the open market.

Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel, head for Ignudo
ca. 1505
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel, heads for the Last Judgment
1534
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel, figures for the Last Judgment
1534
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel, figure for the Last Judgment
1540
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Virgin Annunciate
1530
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Annunciation
ca. 1542-46
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Resurrection
1532-33
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Resurrection
1532-33
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Dragon
16th century
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
 
Michelangelo
Capitals
ca. 1518-20
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Young man beckoning
1503-04
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Design details for the Biblioteca Laurenziana
1525
drawing
British Museum

Michelangelo
Portrait of Andrea Quaratesi
1530
drawing
British Musesum

The portrait drawing above depicts Andrea Quaratesi, a Roman aristocrat known to have paid for drawing lessons from Michelangelo. Such portrait drawings are rare, according to curators at the British Museum, because Michelangelo disliked and avoided making likenesses of actual people. It is strange now to reflect that a sitter of such bland and seemingly negligible impact was yet powerful enough in one way or another to command Michelangelo's pen, against his stated inclination.