Federigo Barocci

Long considered to be by the Venetian Paris Bordone, the drawing was attributed to Barocci by Bert Meijer in February 1987 and connected with Barocci’s famous painting of the Madonna del Popolo by Peter Dreyer in 1989. Now in the collection of the Uffizi, Florence, the altarpiece was executed in 1574 for the lay confraternity of Arezzo and was destined for the Pieve of that town (Emiliani 2008, 1:310-49). The recto of the drawing prepares the figure of a young woman, half-seated, half-kneeling at the lower left. In her lowered right hand she holds a handkerchief, in her raised left, a book.

The doll-like character of drawn figure suggests that Barocci may have studied the pose from a mannequin. A slightly more individualized study for the same figure is to be found on a sheet in the Lugt Collegtion, Institut Néerlandais, Paris (inv. 1992; Paris and elsewhere 1962, no. 131; Emiliani 2008, 1:338, no. 38:69); see also Uffizi, inv. 11603F verso and Wurzburg, University Museum, inv. 7191; (Emililiani 2008, 1:332-33, nos. 38:56 and 38:57).

Two studies of a raised left hand, supposedly for Madonna del Popolo, are in Düsseldorf (black and coloured chalk on blue paper) (FP 8518).