Fra Bartolomeo

This representation of the Virgin and Child, which is characterized by the elegant slope of the neck and the affectionately inclined head of the Virgin nuzzling the Child who clambers up on her, grasping her veil, is similar to that in a tondo from the mid-1490s by Fra Bartolommeo, which is now in a private collection (Fischer 1992, 11). The motif derives from reliefs of the same subject by Donatello, such as the Madonna in the Clouds in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Madonna dell’Umilità in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (Fischer 1992, 13-15). The Frate seems to have turned to this same Donatellesque pose in a number of pen and ink drawings from his youth, such as the Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist presented by an Angel in the Uffizi, Florence (inv. 242 S; Fischer 1992, 14-15, note 23, no. 13), the Madonna dell’Umilità in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich (inv. 2165 verso; Fischer 1992, 14-15, note 24, no. 14), and the Virgin and Child with a Kneeling Angel in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge (inv. 1965.356; Mongan, Oberhuber, and Bober 1988, no. 17; 26-27). Occasionally thought to be a faint sketch of a third figure, the traces of red chalk behind the Virgin’s shoulder in the Morgan Library study are more likely marks that have rubbed off from another drawing.

It is also worth noting that trees comparable to those on the verso of the Morgan drawing appear in a number of early drawings by Fra Bartolommeo, including sheets in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv. KdZ 21614; Winner 1966, 22, no. 2); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. 1958.1 recto; McAndrew 1983, 18-19, no. 9); the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. AIC 1957.530 recto; McCullagh and Giles 1997, 22, no. 18, repr. (recto and verso)); the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence (inv. 244 S); and the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. RF 5567 recto).