Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Standing Man

Artist: Unknown Artist (Italian, 1550-1600-)

Medium: red chalk on paper

Dimensions: 10 13/16 in. x 4 7/8 in. (27.5 cm. x 12.38 cm.)

Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James Bowdoin III

Accession Number: 1811.36

• fleur-de-lis within circle (cf. Briquet 1706-Ferrara 1583)
  Type: watermark
  Location:
  Materials:
• "Dominiken"
  Type: inscription
  Location: former mount (removed)
  Materials: pen and brown ink

• 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)
• Drawing on Basics
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
• Michelangelo: Art and Afterlife
  • Wegner, Susan. ( 12/6/2012 - 12/23/2012)
• Old Master Drawings from the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
  • Timken Museum of Art. ( 5/13/2005 - 8/14/2005)
• Why Draw? 500 Years of Drawings and Watercolors at Bowdoin College
  • Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/3/2017 - 9/3/2017)

Type: catalogue
Author: Henry Johnson
Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 18
Remarks: repr. in large paper edition (as Domenichino)
Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings
Date: 1885

Author: Rev. F. H. Allen
Document Title: The Bowdoin Collection
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pt. 1
Reference: no. 2, repr.
Remarks: (as Domenichino)
Section Title: [five parts of four illustrations each, with individual texts]
Date: 1886

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. 18
Remarks: (as Domenichino)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . .
Date: 1930

Type: exhibition catalogue
Author: David P. Becker
Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Location: pp. 86-87
Reference: no. 39 (illus.)
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Date: 1985
			
		

This sheet came to the collection with a traditional attribution to Domenichino. Richard Spear, however, suggested looking near Giuseppe Cesari (d'Arpino), and Konrad Oberhuber felt that it is the work of an earlier Bolognese artist working in the 1580s or 1590s. He noted that the strong draughtsmanship resembles the style of Bartolomeo Passarotti, but Passarotti's most characteristic drawings are executed in pen and ink, and red chalk studies by him are not familiar.

Oberhuber has tentatively suggested an artist such as Giovanni Francesco Bezzi, called Nosadella; Lorenzo Sabatini; or Orazio Samacchini. The latter's forceful draughtsmanship can be seen in a study for a seated prophet in the Scholz Collection in the Pierpont Morgan Library.¹ The Bowdoin study would also seem to be for a prophet or hero figure in a decorative project, obviously influenced by Florentine draughtsmanship deriving from Michelangelo.

1. Inv. no. 1981.20, repr. Ottawa 1982, cat. no. 15. Drawings by Sabatini and Samacchini are often confused; the most recent discussion of draughtsmanship of this school is in De Grazia 1984, pp. 330-340.

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).