Andrea del Sarto (Italian, 1486–1530)
Red chalk
8 7/16 x 7 1/4 in. (21.5 x 18.4 cm)
Partial and Promised Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David M. Tobey, 2008 (2008.367)
A discovery at auction in 2007, this imposing and animated portraitlike study in red chalk may well be derived from a model in an antique cameo or another such relief sculpture. It is an entirely characteristic drawing by Andrea del Sarto and was preparatory for the main figure in one of his major projects, the fresco of the Tribute to Caesar in the salone (great hall) of the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano, near Florence. While the subject portrayed is ostensibly the presentation of tribute to Caesar in Egypt, it also seems to contain a politic allusion to the sultan of Egypt's presentation of gifts to Lorenzo Medici "the Magnificent" in 1487. A number of drawings by Sarto can be associated with this fresco at Poggio, including two similarly poignant head studies in red chalk, which are also evocative of antique portrait sculpture, and which are now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, and the Uffizi, Florence. The fresco at Poggio, which was left unfinished (signed by Sarto and inscribed with the date of 1521), marked by all accounts a turning point in his style, evidencing a new understanding of the heroic narrative manner of Raphael (who died in Rome in 1520), and thus, the fresco may provide the first really convincing evidence of Sarto having been to Rome. Similarly, and as is seen here, certain of the red chalk drawings by Sarto associated with the Tribute to Caesar fresco at Poggio reveal an appreciation for Raphael's subtleties in handling the red-chalk medium (as in the master's studies for the Sistine Chapel tapestries and the Transfiguration). In Sarto's drawing of the head of Caesar, the vigorously sculptural quality of light and dark is exquisitely reined in with atmospheric tonal nuance: the artist rubbed in selectively the chalk strokes of curved hatching which follow the forms to produce delicate sfumato. The verso of the sheet contains a considerably sketchier outline study by Sarto of a male head in a profile view.
