Drawing of the Month

ROSIE RAZZALL, CURATOR OF DRAWINGS AT MUSEUM BOIJMANS VAN BEUNINGEN IN ROTTERDAM HAS KINDLY CHOSEN OUR FIRST DRAWING OF THE MONTH

pisanello (Antonio di Pucci Pisano) (c. 1395-1455)

Four studies of a female nude, an Annunciation and two studies of a woman swimming, c. 1431-32

Pen and ink on parchment, 223 x 167 mm, Loan: Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen 1940 (former collection Koenigs)

“What a difficult task choosing my favourite drawing from the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. But I found that I kept coming back to a drawing that I’ve become very familiar with in the last few months, Pisanello’s beautiful sheet dominated by the study of four nude women.

It felt appropriate for this first issue of the newsletter to choose a drawing that sits on the cusp of new beginnings, as well as at the very edge of our parameters as scholars and specialists in drawing. It’s one of the earliest drawings in the museum’s collection, and as such is on parchment rather than paper. The sheet is a page from a drawing book that was passed around the students in Pisanello’s workshop. While the motif of the Angel and Virgin looks back to the copying practices of the medieval workshop, the nude studies below signal a new interest in the human figure. These are probably among the earliest female nude studies in existence, something that still gives me a burst of amazement every time I look at the sheet.

The muscles, hair and feet of these figures are minutely and carefully recorded. In the upper corner are two female swimmers, a highly unusual and intriguing subject for such an early date.

As the swimmers’ faces have been copied from those of the women below, and their limbs sit quite awkwardly in the water, it’s possible that Pisanello invented these figures rather than drawing them from life. This means that all on the same sheet we can witness observation from life, the making of copies, and drawing from the imagination. These three approaches to the making of drawing essentially remained, often interacting with each other, for the next 500 years. Thinking about them still forms the starting point for much of our art historical scholarship on drawing.”