There are two further pen-and-ink drawings of the Colosseum which appear to be by the same hand. One of these, in Edinburgh, was attributed to Giovanni Battista Naldini by A. E. Popham and published as such by Keith Andrews.1 The other, at Christ Church, Oxford, was published as by an anonymous Roman artist of the first half of the sixteenth century in 1976, though the author, James Byam Shaw, noted its similarity to the Edinburgh and Morgan drawings.2 All three sheets closely relate to three drawings of the Colosseum in the Codex Escurialensis, which are thought to be somewhat earlier.3 The Morgan drawing is a close-up of the view given in the Edinburgh drawing, and both were probably drawn from the top of the Arch of Constantine. It lacks the washes and the figures which give the Christ Church drawing a greater pictorial feel and a better sense of scale. The Christ Church view was taken from further to the left, probably from close to the Arch of Titus.
Naldini went to Rome, after the death of Pontormo, in late September 1560, with introductions by Vasari. There, Naldini used a sketchbook to make copies from the antique, Renaissance architecture, Raphael and Polidoro, as well as landscape and nature studies. There is a series of fourteen such drawings at Christ Church, Oxford4 and several others dispersed between the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin and Uffizi, Florence.5 The artist remained in Rome until spring 1561 and traveled there at least once more, from 1577 to 1580.
Footnotes:
- National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, inv. D 992A; Andrews 1968, 1: 78; Thiem 2002, no. 5; Waldman, in Ottawa 2009, no. 74.
- Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford, inv. 0809; Byam Shaw 1976, 1: 148, no. 519.
- Egger 1906, fols. 24v, 28v, 41v.
- Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford, inv. 0832-0844, 0846; Byam Shaw 1976, nos. 195-208.
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, inv. R 139; Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv. KdZ 22589; Uffizi, Florence, inv. 53P, 7405F.
Watermark: none.
Acquired as Italian school, Roman.
Scholz, János, former owner.
Selected references: Bloomington and Elsewhere 1958, no. 37(as unknown artist in Rome, ca. 1525); Detroit 1960, no. 48; Philadelphia and Detroit 1960-61, no. 155 (as anonymous Italian School); New York 1961, no. 56 (as Roman master, ca. 1500); Houston 1966, no. 7 (as anonymous artist, Roman school, ca. 1500); Hartford 1969-70, no. 1 (as anonymous artist, ca. 1500); Byam Shaw 1976, 1: 149, under no. 519; Providence 1978, 20, 29-30, no. 7 (as anonymous, probably Italian early 16th century); Thiem 2002, 45.