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  • "F. Zuccaro 3.2 / F. Zucro"
    Type: inscription
    Location: verso
    Materials: pen and brown ink
  • "P. L." (Lugt 2092) - mark of Sir Peter Lely (artist) (1618-1680)
    Type: collector's mark
    Location:
    Materials:
  • Sir Peter Lely ( Artist and Collector, ) - 1680.
    (1618-1680)
  • James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
  • Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
    • Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
    • University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
    • Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
  • Baroque Drawings
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 2/3/1981 - 3/5/1981)
  • Masterpieces from the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
    • The Currier Gallery of Art. ( 9/5/1986 - 10/19/1986)
  • A Selection of Italian Drawings from North American Collections
    • University of Saskatchewan, Regina. ( 1/16/1970 - 2/15/1970)
    • Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. ( 3/5/1970 - 4/3/1970)
  • The Draftsman's Eye: Late Renaissance Schools and Styles
  • Drawing on Basics
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
  • Re-opening Exhibition: Great Graphics: Prints and Drawings 1470-1970
    • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/2007 - 3/9/2008)
  • Old Master Drawings from the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
    • Timken Museum of Art. ( 5/13/2005 - 8/14/2005) 
Type: catalogue
Author: Henry Johnson
Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 14
Remarks: (as Federico Zuccaro)
Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings
Date: 1885

Author: F. J. Mather, Jr.
Document Title: Art in America, vol. I, no. 4
Location: p. 248
Reference: fig. 14
Remarks: (as possibly Poccetti)
Section Title: Drawings by Old Masters at Bowdoin College
Date: 1913

Type: catalogue
Author: Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Document Title: Bowdoin Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building
Edition: 4th
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 14
Remarks: (as Federico Zuccaro)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . .
Date: 1930

Type: Ph. D. dissertation
Author: Walter Vitzthum
Document Title: Die Handzeichnungen des Bernardino Poccetti
Publ. Place: Berlin
Location: pp. 73-74
Remarks: (as Poccetti)
Date: 1955

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: Walter Vitzthum
Document Title: A Selection of Italian Drawings from North American Collections
Publ. Place: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Location: pp. 36-38
Reference: fig. 27
Publisher: University of Saskatchewan, Regina
Date: 1970

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: L. C. J. Frerichs
Document Title: Italiaanse Tekeningen 1: de 17de Eeuw
Publ. Place: Amsterdam
Location: p. 35
Reference: under no. 105
Publisher: Rijksprentenkabinet
Date: 1973

Type: catalogue
Author: F. Gibbons
Document Title: Catalogue of Italian Drawings in the Art Museum, Princeton University
Publ. Place: Princeton
Location: vol. I, p. 161
Reference: under no. 500
Publisher: Princeton University
Date: 1977

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: E. J. Olszewski and J. Glaubinger
Document Title: The Draftsman's Eye 
Publ. Place: Cleveland
Location: pp. 46-47
Reference: figs. 21 (recto & verso)
Publisher: Cleveland Museum of Art
Section Title:  Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles
Date: 1979

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: P. Hamilton 
Document Title: Disegni di Bernardino Poccetti
Publ. Place: Florence
Location: p. 80
Reference: under no. 62
Publisher: Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi
Date: 1980

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: David P. Becker
Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pp. 90-91
Reference: no. 41 (illus.)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Date: 1985

Tentatively associated with Poccetti by Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., this drawing was firmly identified by Walter Vitzthum as a study for one of Poccetti's later commissions. From 1604 to 1612, he painted fourteen lunettes in the Chiostro Grande (or large cloister, also called Chiostro dei Morti because of the tomb slabs located in the pavement) in the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence (fig. 1), depicting incidents from the history of the resident Servite Order. This sketch is a detail study for the figures at the far right of the lunette showing the founding of the order in 1233 (fig. 2). The scene depicts the founders gathered in church on the feast day of the Assumption of the Virgin as bystanders watch from the foreground. The curved edge of the lunette format can be seen to the right of the woman's head and behind the child. Vitzthum dated the related fresco to circa 1604-1606 (Vitzthum, 38). Paul Hamilton has compiled the most complete list of the preparatory drawings for this cycle in his 1980 catalogue on the artist’s drawings in the Gabinetto disegni e stampe in the Uffizi (Hamilton, 78-82).

L.C.J. Frerichs identified an early study by Poccetti (fig. 3) for the same woman in the Bowdoin drawing in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Frerichs, 35). It is a large figure study, possibly from life, with the woman's pose not yet completely resolved. Another drawing, a pen and ink compositional sketch for the entire lunette, is in the Fitzwilliam Museum (fig. 4). The Bowdoin sketch is probably a final preparatory study, as the attitudes of the woman and child are just as in the fresco, having been changed from the earlier Fitzwilliam sketch. The lightly indicated figures to the left of the woman in the Bowdoin drawing are not present in the fresco, and the head of the man also visible here at the left is turned out toward the viewer. The technique of two colors of chalk employed in the Bowdoin sheet was employed by Poccetti throughout his career.

The collector’s stamp on the bottom right corner of the recto indicates that the drawing was in the collection of Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), a Dutch artist active in England who amassed an extensive corpus of old master drawings. His collection was dispersed in several sales soon after his death, and this sheet could have been purchased either by John Smibert before leaving for America or by James Bowdoin III during one of his multiple trips to London.

David P. Becker (edited by Sarah Cantor)

References:

Hamilton, Paul. Disegni di Bernardino Poccetti. Florence: L.S. Olschki, 1980.

Vitzthum, Walter. A Selection of Italian Drawings from North American Collections. Regina, Canada: Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1970.

Images:

Fig. 1: Chiostro Grande, Santissima Annunziata, Florence
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ss_annunziata,_chiostro_grande_1.JPG

Fig. 2: Bernardino Poccetti Beginning of the Servite Order in the Compagnia dei Laudesi in 1233, ca. 1604-06, fresco, north portico, Chiostro Grande, Santissima Annuziata, Florence https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ss_annunziata,_chiostro_grande,_n06_bernardino_poccetti,_nascita_del_nuovo_ordine_della_compagnia_dei_laudesi.JPG (NOTE: Better image that could be scanned is in Gauvin Alexander Bailey, “Catholic Reform and Bernardino Poccetti’s Chiostro dei Morti at the Church of SS Annunziata in Florence,” Apollo 158, no. 499 (Sept 2003): 23-31, fig. 2)

Fig. 3: Bernardino Poccetti Study of a Standing Woman, ca. 1604, red chalk, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-T-1956-122(R)
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/search/objects?q=poccetti&p=1&ps=12&ii=3#/RP-T-1956-122(R),3

Fig. 4: Bernardino Poccetti Design for a Lunette in the Church of SS. Annunziata, Florence, ca. 1604, pen and brown ink with light grey-brown wash and traces of blue wash over traces of red chalk, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, PD.15-1980 http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/explorer/index.php?qu=poccetti%20OR%20Maker:Poccetti%20AND%20Maker:(Bernardino%20AND%20Maker:Barbatelli)&oid=7726

Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).