Attributed to Francesco Morandini

Formerly considered to be by Rosso Fiorentino, the drawing was attributed to Francesco Morandini, called il Poppi, by Janet Cox-Rearick (unpublished opinion recorded in the curatorial file, 1958), independently by Eugene Caroll (unpublished opinion recorded in the curatorial file, 1959) and by Philip Pouncey (unpublished opinion recorded in the curatorial file, 1964). Among accepted drawings by Morandini, certain sketchy passages in a compositional study, now in the Louvre, present the closest comparison in handling and style to the present sheet.¹

Nevertheless, the Morgan study differs from the great majority of the drawings by Poppi, such as the group preserved in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, in its exceptional freedom of handling. In 1959, an alternative attribution to Andrea Boscoli was proposed by Anna Forlani Tempesti, a suggestion which Julian Brooks considers worth entertaining (email with Morgan curators, 2001).² A similar red chalk drawing attributed to Boscoli is now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.³

The drawing’s subject remains enigmatic. It might refer to a scene with Moses and the Israelites, possibly the Gathering of Manna, which would explain the action of the stooped figure in the foreground. The bearded figure in the background (second from right), bears a certain resemblance to Michelangelo’s sculpture of Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome; the similar figure to his left (from the viewer’s perspective) could be Aaron.

Footnotes:

1. Louvre, Paris, inv. 9059; Monbeig Goguel 1972, no. 79.
2. Florence 1959, 20, under no. 13.
3. Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. KdZ 21446.