Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

5. Peter Candid, Pietà, pen and black ink and wash, heightened
with white, 242 x 190mm., Albertina, Vienna, inv.1183.
which is now in the Pinacoteca Civica, Volterra
(fig.3) and its related, worked-up composition
study in the Louvre (fig.4) 6 . In the cataloguing for
the latter, Volk- Knüttel points out that the modeling
of the figure of Christ derives from Michelangelo’s
Pietà and that the drawing style also recalls that of
early Michelangelo. The present previously unknown
drawing serves to emphasise this link further still by
echoing Michelangelo’s composition, while its style
and handling have exactly the same spirit as the
Louvre and Prado drawings. A slightly later work on
the same theme, which has a terminus ante quem of
1595 is the preparatory drawing by Candid, now in
the Albertina, Vienna (fig.5), for Sadeler’s engraving
of the Pieta 7 . This latter drawing has a more Northern
character, the figures are somewhat elongated and
the effect created by the ink and white heightening
is less sculptural. One further drawing by Candid of
the Pietà, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York
(fig. 6), was discussed by Stijn Alsteens in a recent
exhitibion catalogue 8 . It shows the figure of Christ, as
if kneeling, balanced against the Virgin’s knees as she
supports his outflung arms. The motif is similar to that
studied in the Berlin drawing mentioned above and to
the related copper in Breslau but the style is distinctly
later, closer to Sustris, and the Metropolitan’s drawing
must date from after Candid’s summons to Munich. It
is unique amongst Candid’s surviving sheets for being
an architectural study - a design for an entire altar
- and it was later turned into a print by Jan Sadeler
I. Alsteens notes that the position of Christ seems to
have been inspired by Michelangelo’s Pietà and goes
on to speculate: Could Michelangelo’s sculpture have
inspired Candid to design his own Pietà while he
was still in Italy and, after moving to Munich, did he
continue developing the idea … The present, newly
discovered work, gives further evidence that this was
indeed the case with its eloquent and monumental
examination of form and drapery.
6. Peter Candid, Design for an Altar with a Pietà, pen and black
ink and grey wash, 254 x 138 mm, New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Inv. 2003.509.
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