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Michelangelo. Drawings and Attributions
From 6 March to 7 June 2009, the Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings of Frankfurt will be presenting an exhibition dedicated to the issue of the attribution of Old Master drawings in the particularly contentious case of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564). Besides his world-famous sculptures, frescoes, and buildings, Michelangelo made a large number of drawings, which compelled great admiration in his day. As he never signed his drawings and burnt a lot of them shortly before his death, it is difficult to determine whether many of the surviving sheets are actually autograph or copies or imitations by other artists.
The occasion for the exhibition has been supplied by a drawing in the
Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings whose attribution to Michelangelo was the subject of controversy in the past. Recently, the sheet has again been attributed to Michelangelo by several experts. Presenting a number of selected examples – amongst them precious loans from the collections of the British Museum in London, the Royal Collection in Windsor, and the Casa Buonarroti in Florence – the exhibition grants various possibilities for direct visual comparison, providing visitors with an opportunity for exploring the issue on their own in front of the original works.
The sheet from the Städel Museum’s holdings, "Grotesque Heads and Further Studies,” was purchased as a work by Michelangelo in the nineteenth century and attributed or partly attributed to the artist since then, before being deattributed around 1980. Since many experts have lately expressed their opinion that the drawing is an autograph work by Michelangelo after all, the plan for an exhibition evolved that would not be limited to dealing with the work in question but rather explore the problem of attribution in a more general way. It should be remembered that the Städel’s "Grotesque Heads” sheet is no "new discovery,” but an example of reattributing a drawing that has been known for a long time.
The Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings boasts an outstanding collection of Italian Renaissance drawings, which is one of the best in Germany. This collection was mainly built up by the outstanding expert Johann David Passavant (1787–1861), who, as inspector of the gallery, added many valuable acquisitions to the Städel collection from 1840 until his death. The Nazarene painter was a specialist when it came to Raphael, whose drawings number among the Städel collection’s first-class works today. However, Passavant had a less lucky touch when purchasing works by Michelangelo; he only made a few acquisitions which were not free of doubt, which is why the "Grotesque Heads” sheet has aroused comparatively little attention.
The catalogue contains a summary of the history of research into Michelangelo’s drawings and explains which arguments and clues may be useful for the attribution of drawings besides style and quality. These leads include the exact identification of techniques, the sheets’ provenance, watermarks, the subjects dealt with, inscriptions, etc. The catalogue unfolds the arguments for and against the autograph character of the exhibited works as comprehensively as possible.
Curator: Dr. Martin Sonnabend (staedelmuseum.de)
Michelangelo. Drawings and Attributions
From 6 March to 7 June 2009, the Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings of Frankfurt will be presenting an exhibition dedicated to the issue of the attribution of Old Master drawings in the particularly contentious case of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564). Besides his world-famous sculptures, frescoes, and buildings, Michelangelo made a large number of drawings, which compelled great admiration in his day. As he never signed his drawings and burnt a lot of them shortly before his death, it is difficult to determine whether many of the surviving sheets are actually autograph or copies or imitations by other artists.
The occasion for the exhibition has been supplied by a drawing in the
Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings whose attribution to Michelangelo was the subject of controversy in the past. Recently, the sheet has again been attributed to Michelangelo by several experts. Presenting a number of selected examples – amongst them precious loans from the collections of the British Museum in London, the Royal Collection in Windsor, and the Casa Buonarroti in Florence – the exhibition grants various possibilities for direct visual comparison, providing visitors with an opportunity for exploring the issue on their own in front of the original works.
The sheet from the Städel Museum’s holdings, "Grotesque Heads and Further Studies,” was purchased as a work by Michelangelo in the nineteenth century and attributed or partly attributed to the artist since then, before being deattributed around 1980. Since many experts have lately expressed their opinion that the drawing is an autograph work by Michelangelo after all, the plan for an exhibition evolved that would not be limited to dealing with the work in question but rather explore the problem of attribution in a more general way. It should be remembered that the Städel’s "Grotesque Heads” sheet is no "new discovery,” but an example of reattributing a drawing that has been known for a long time.
The Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings boasts an outstanding collection of Italian Renaissance drawings, which is one of the best in Germany. This collection was mainly built up by the outstanding expert Johann David Passavant (1787–1861), who, as inspector of the gallery, added many valuable acquisitions to the Städel collection from 1840 until his death. The Nazarene painter was a specialist when it came to Raphael, whose drawings number among the Städel collection’s first-class works today. However, Passavant had a less lucky touch when purchasing works by Michelangelo; he only made a few acquisitions which were not free of doubt, which is why the "Grotesque Heads” sheet has aroused comparatively little attention.
The catalogue contains a summary of the history of research into Michelangelo’s drawings and explains which arguments and clues may be useful for the attribution of drawings besides style and quality. These leads include the exact identification of techniques, the sheets’ provenance, watermarks, the subjects dealt with, inscriptions, etc. The catalogue unfolds the arguments for and against the autograph character of the exhibited works as comprehensively as possible.
Curator: Dr. Martin Sonnabend (staedelmuseum.de)
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