Mannerist Models

Baccio Bandinelli
Figure Study
ca. 1530
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Federico Barocci
Torso
(study for Descent from the Cross)
ca. 1568-69
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)
Figure Study
ca. 1590
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Cornelis van Haarlem
Figure Study
ca. 1595
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Paolo Farinati
Sheet of Studies
ca. 1570
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Girolamo da Carpi
Study of Leg
ca. 1549-53
drawing
Biblioteca Reale, Turin

workshop of Jacopo Ligozzi
Anatomical Studies of Cadaver
ca. 1580
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Giovanni Battista Naldini
Figure Study
ca. 1560
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

attributed to Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Figure Study
before 1540
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Standing Youth
ca. 1530-40
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Tiburzio Passarotti
Figure Studies
ca. 1580-90
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Polidoro da Caravaggio
Half-Length Figure Study
ca. 1530
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Polidoro da Caravaggio
Sheet of Studies
ca. 1530
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

attributed to Bartholomeus Spranger
Anatomical Studies
ca. 1590
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Hans Heinrich Wägmann
Swiss Guard with Halberd
ca. 1590
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

workshop of Willem Danielsz van Tetrode
Écorché Figure
ca. 1562-67
bronze
Yale University Art Gallery

 

[The Ghost of Darius appears above his tomb.]

Ghost: Trusted, the trusted contemporaries of my youth, elders of Persia, what distress is our state suffering? The earth is groaning, having been beaten and furrowed; the sight of my wife close by my tomb causes me fear, though I have gladly accepted her drink-offerings; and you are standing round my tomb singing songs of grief, lifting up your voices in wailing to summon my spirit, and calling on me in piteous tones. It has not been easy to gain egress; apart from anything else, the gods below the earth are better at taking people in then at letting them go; nevertheless holding as I do a position of power among them, I have come here. But be speedy, so that I am not blamed for the time I have taken: what is the heavy recent disaster that has happened to Persia?  

[The Chorus prostrate themselves.]

Chorus:  I am too awed to look upon you,

                I am too awed to speak before you,

                because I feared you of old. 

Ghost:  But since it is your laments that have induced me to come up from below, speak now, not in long-winded words but putting it concisely and covering everything, setting your awe of me aside.

Chorus:  I am afraid to gratify your wish,

                I am afraid to speak plainly,

                saying things that are hard to say to a friend. 

– Aeschylus, from Persians (472 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)