Lot Essay
Chris Fischer initially dated this drawing to circa 1495 in the
Uffizi catalogue, but in the Rotterdam catalogue he revised his opinion, suggesting that the recto is preparatory for a lost painting of Christ and the Women of Samaria of 1504. The painting is mentioned in a list of Fra Bartolommeo's paintings made by Bartolommeo Cavalcanti in 1517 as one of the first to be executed after the artist resumed painting, following his move to the convent of San Marco in Florence. This four year break from painting, while he trained to become a monk, probably explains why the drawing looks so much like those executed before his entry into the convent of San Domenico in July 1500.
The painting was a relatively small one (it is described in the list as being 'circa d'un braccio'), but characteristically the surviving studies show that the artist explored various compositions. A drawing in the Uffizi (Fischer, op. cit., 1986, fig. 49) has on a single sheet alternative compositions: Christ seated on the wellhead with the kneeling Samaritan on the right, and the same in reverse but with the woman standing. Of the various drawings related to the painting (listed in Fischer, 1986, under no. 34), the present drawing is closest in handling to that of a sheet in the Louvre (Fischer, 1994, no. 43, recto)
The figures on the verso are not connected to any composition although the figure on the left may be for an Assumption of the Virgin. The studies of the Madonna and Child are, as Fischer points out, related to the verso of a drawing in the Louvre, Fischer, 1994, no. 34 verso. Both are studies of a half-length Madonna with the standing Christ Child, and this composition suggests that Fra Bartlommeo had seen paintings of this type by Giovanni Bellini. Fischer compares the vigorous penwork of a double-sided drawing of the Assumption of the Virgin (related to a destroyed painting formerly at Berlin) and The Coronation of the Virgin in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, with that of the present drawing, J. Byam Shaw, The Italian Drawings of the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, 1983, no. 14, illustrated
Uffizi catalogue, but in the Rotterdam catalogue he revised his opinion, suggesting that the recto is preparatory for a lost painting of Christ and the Women of Samaria of 1504. The painting is mentioned in a list of Fra Bartolommeo's paintings made by Bartolommeo Cavalcanti in 1517 as one of the first to be executed after the artist resumed painting, following his move to the convent of San Marco in Florence. This four year break from painting, while he trained to become a monk, probably explains why the drawing looks so much like those executed before his entry into the convent of San Domenico in July 1500.
The painting was a relatively small one (it is described in the list as being 'circa d'un braccio'), but characteristically the surviving studies show that the artist explored various compositions. A drawing in the Uffizi (Fischer, op. cit., 1986, fig. 49) has on a single sheet alternative compositions: Christ seated on the wellhead with the kneeling Samaritan on the right, and the same in reverse but with the woman standing. Of the various drawings related to the painting (listed in Fischer, 1986, under no. 34), the present drawing is closest in handling to that of a sheet in the Louvre (Fischer, 1994, no. 43, recto)
The figures on the verso are not connected to any composition although the figure on the left may be for an Assumption of the Virgin. The studies of the Madonna and Child are, as Fischer points out, related to the verso of a drawing in the Louvre, Fischer, 1994, no. 34 verso. Both are studies of a half-length Madonna with the standing Christ Child, and this composition suggests that Fra Bartlommeo had seen paintings of this type by Giovanni Bellini. Fischer compares the vigorous penwork of a double-sided drawing of the Assumption of the Virgin (related to a destroyed painting formerly at Berlin) and The Coronation of the Virgin in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, with that of the present drawing, J. Byam Shaw, The Italian Drawings of the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, 1983, no. 14, illustrated