A selection of master drawings 2016

2. Giuseppe Cesari called Cavalier d’Arpino, Study for a nude male,
pen, brown ink, brown washes on laid paper , 280 x 175 mm
(11 x 6 ⅞ in.), Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
1580s, close in date to the previously recalled Justice of
Brutus, which should be placed around 1586. Although
stylistic analysis of the two pieces allows them to be easily
placed within a precise chronological window, the St.
Mark and David with the head of Goliath are not precisely
linked to any of the painted works attributed to the
young Arpino. One can imagine the two figures within
niches to be part of a large decoration, with the idea of
filling the spaces in the walls next to vastly sized scenes.
For example, this layout characterises the old Room of
the Swiss Guards in the Vatican, where, around 1583,
Cesari «figure di chiaro, e scuro Sansone, che porta in spalla
le porte della città di gazza» 6 , or in the Sala dei Palafrenieri
in which Arpino painted some of the figures of the
Apostles 7 . Amongst these a painted St. Mark has also been
attributed to Arpino, however, it is executed using forms
which are rather different to those which characterise the
apostle in our drawing. With the evangelist in the Vatican
fresco, it only shares the pose of the legs, the flexed and
slightly raised right and the extended left. In the Sala
Palafrenieri, depictions of figures and episodes from the
Old Testament are missing, such as the David drawn on
the right hand of our sheet. This, in my opinion, was
imagined for the same decoration of the St. Mark, as the
lighting on the figures, who are struck by an intense glow
originating from the left, appears to suggest.