Drawing of the month #4
Antonio d’Enrico, called Tanzio da Varallo (c. 1582-1633)
Study of a female nude bust (Eve?), hands crossed on the chest and supported by two arms
Red chalk, 156 x 129 mm, Musée Jenisch Vevey, Vevey, Inv. no.: 2015-254
The exhibition “Disegno Disegni” continues at the Musée Jenisch Vevey until April 14, 2024. The catalogue, “Disegno Disegni: Dessins Italiens de la Renaissance au XIXe siècle”, to which Dominique contributed, is available now through Silvana Editoriale, Milan.
Dominique Radrizzani, former director of the Musée Jenisch Vevey, has kindly chosen our fourth drawing of the month.
1895 was a good year for the British Museum. That September, the Department of Prints and Drawings bagged the astonishing collection of John Malcolm of Poltalloch, which boasted Botticellis, Raphaels and Titians – plus Michelangelo’s only complete surviving cartoon. Any one of these drawings has a claim to being my favourite in Bloomsbury, but for today at least that crown goes to Andrea del Verrocchio’s Head of a Woman.
This delicate study of an ideal woman is probably connected with a banner Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci designed for a joust held in Florence in 1475. Quite how it is related is less clear, but it is unlikely to be directly preparatory. Instead, Verrocchio seems to have used his studies for the banner, especially one on the verso of the sheet, as a springboard to create a new drawing, perhaps made as an end in itself.
On December 7, 2023, the exhibition "Disegno Disegni" was inaugurated at the Musée Jenisch Vevey, an institution I once directed. In the exhibition, Italian drawings from a private collection meet those of the museum, for which I co-authored the first scholarly catalogue with Giulio Bora – let us acknowledge him in passing – in 1997 (“Cinq siècles de dessins”). After some deliberation over the choice of drawing (there is a very beautiful Perino del Vaga in the exhibition), I have decided on a "new" drawing, which was absent from the 1997 catalogue for the simple reason that it was only acquired in 2015!
As a draughtsman, Tanzio da Varallo is mostly known for his red chalk studies of details intended for paintings. This beautiful nude study relates to the fresco in the Chapel of the Guardian Angel (Cappella dell’Angelo Custode), sometimes called the Nazari Chapel after its patron, Ottavio Nazari, in the Basilica of San Gaudenzio in Novara. The centre of the barrel vault shows Christ between the Virgin and Saint Gaudentius. On either side are musical angels, and in the lower register are souls led by angels to Purgatory. On the left there are men and on the right, women.
Dated February 19, 1627, in the house of Ottavio Nazari, the contract for the fresco lays out technical and financial conditions. With a few significant variations, the drawing details the main group in the lower register on the right: a woman (sometimes identified as Eve) led by an angel.
Facing the Chapel of Good Death (Cappella della Buona Morte) painted by the recently deceased Morazzone (1573-1626), Tanzio strives to compete with the late Mannerist Lombard by presenting a language of physical corporality, felt even in the red chalk used here, where the powerful chiaroscuro modelling and pre-photographic realism betray the influence of Caravaggio.
