Two Studies of a Flayed Man (recto)
1554
Bartolommeo da Arezzo
Bartolommeo da Arezzo (Italian, active about 1550–80)
Drawings
Two Studies of a Flayed Man (recto), 1554. Bartolommeo da Arezzo (Italian, active about 1550–80). Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over black chalk; incised (both figures) and pricked (left figure); sheet: 40.5 x 27.6 cm (15 15/16 x 10 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, L. E. Holden Fund 1975.26.a In order to understand the movement of the human form, Michelangelo was known to have studied flayed bodies (cadavers with their skin removed) and in fact made several drawings of them. Bartolommeo da Arezzo—a follower of Michelangelo working a generation after the master—became obsessed with studying corpses, even stealing them from local graveyards. On one side of this sheet (recto), he drew two views of the lower part of the same body, which is half flayed and shown hanging above the ground.
- Maker/Artist
- Bartolommeo da Arezzo
- Classification
- Drawing
- Formatted Medium
- pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over black chalk; incised (both figures) and pricked (left figure)
- Medium
- pen, brown, ink, brush, wash, over, black, chalk, incised, both, figures, pricked, left, figure
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 40.5 x 27.6 cm (15 15/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: signed, lower right, in brown ink: demano de bart / aretino . 1554 . [underlined] ; by artist(?), lower center, in brown ink: N° 10 ; lower right, in graphite [Bartolo° T?] [partially masked]
- Departments
- Drawings
- Accession Number
- 1975.26.a
- Credit Line
- L. E. Holden Fund
- Exhibitions
- Master/Apprentice: Imitation and Inspiration in the Renaissance, CMA, The Draftsman's Eye: Late Italian Renaissance Schools and Styles (Mar. 6-Apr. 22, 1979), no. 66, illus. pp. 10, 23, 35, 54.<br>CMA, "Year in Review for 1975" (Feb. 3-Mar. 7, 1976), cma Bulletin 63 (1976), p. 69 no. 119.
- Rights Statement
- CC0
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