Figure Studies [verso]

c. 1530/1540

Perino del Vaga

Artist, Italian, 1501 - 1547

Drawings of bodies fill the left half of this vertical, parchment-colored paper, and writing fills the right half. The drawings and writing are in dark brown ink, and lines from the other side of the sheet show through, creating blurred forms. On the left, several nude male bodies are loosely drawn and appear upside down in this view. Their actions are indistinct but they gesture and turn. The right half is filled with horizontal lines of hand-written text and numbers. A vertical line splitting the two halves was presumably made when folded in half at some point in the sheet's history.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    pen and brown ink on laid paper (red chalk line across center)

  • Credit Line

    Pepita Milmore Memorial Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 19.2 x 27.4 cm (7 9/16 x 10 13/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1980.31.1.b

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Sir Peter Lely (L. 2092); Jonathan Richardson, Sr. (L. 2183); William Mayor (L. 2799). (Walter Schatzki, New York); purchased by Dr. and Mrs. Malcolm Bick, Longmeadow, MA, 1955; NGA purchase in 1980.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1971

  • "Italian Drawings. Selections from the Collection of Esther S. and Malcolm W. Bick," Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, 1971, no. 4.

1973

  • "Drawings and Prints of the First Maniere," Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1973, no. 66.

1974

  • "Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings. Form and Function," Yale University Art Gallery, 1974, no. 11.

2020

  • Raphael and His Circle: Prints and Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2020, no cat.

Wikidata ID

Q64619302

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