The early fifteenth-century painter Parri Spinelli, like many others, looked to the authority of the great Florentine artist Giotto di Bondone for inspiration. This large drawing is a free copy after Giotto’s monumental mosaic (since destroyed) in the portico of Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, as the inscription on the side of the boat indicates. The scene represents a miracle described in the Gospel of Matthew in which Christ saves the Apostles from a storm at sea. Though Parri’s penwork is at times halting, revealing the cautious hand of a copyist, he also took creative liberties in his composition. For example, it appears he enlarged the figures of Christ and Saint Peter and brought them to the foreground. Here, in a momentary lapse of faith, Peter sinks into the water but is rescued by Christ’s hand. The sheet was part of a bound volume that Parri would have kept for reference in composing his own designs.
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Artist: Anonymous Italian Artist after Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Casai) (Italian, San Giovanni Val d'Arno 1401–1428 Rome) (verso)
Artist: After Giotto di Bondone (Italian, Florentine, 1266/76–1337)
Date:ca. 1420
Medium:Pen and brown ink (recto and verso). glued onto a secondary backing sheet of paper drawn in pen and brown ink, over black chalk
Dimensions:Overall: 10 13/16 x 15 3/8 in. (27.5 x 39 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1917
Accession Number:19.76.2
Inscription: Recto is inscribed in pen and brown ink, probably by the artist, along the side of the boat: "la nave di giotto chi...i santo pietro a roma di musaicho." ("The ship by Giotto which is in Saint Peter's in Rome in mosaic.") Annotated in pen and brown ink in another hand, at lower left: "Giotto." Annotated at lower margin of Pembroke mount: "Giotto. 1276-1336. The Picture is in mosaic about 30. feet broad & 20. feet High, a great Weight to be so / raised from ye Wall was saved & Fram'd out of old St. Peter's - this figure angling is mentioned in his Life, there is an other drawing without it."
Marking: Metropolitan Museum of Art collector's stamp (Lugt 1943).
Probably Giorgio Vasari (Italian)(at the upper right: framing motif similar to those used in Vasari's 'Libro de' Disgni'); possibly acquired by Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke (British); Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke (British)(reorganized after 1772-73 in Pembroke Volume IV, XU. 4); by descent to Reginald Herbert, 15th Earl of Pembroke (British); Pembroke sale, Sotheby's, London, July 5–6, 9–10, 1917, lot 515, repr. (as Giotto di Bondone)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," February 6–April 16, 1995.
Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome. "Giotto e il Trecento “Il più Sovrano Maestro stato in dipintura”," March 6, 2009–June 28, 2009.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Innocence and Experience: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints," February 9, 2023–May 16, 2023.
Jonathan Richardson Sr. An Account of the Statues, Bas-reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, France ...,. London, 1754, p. 293.
Sandford Arthur Strong Reproductions in Facsimile of Drawings by the Old Masters in the Collection of the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery at Wilton House. London, 1900, part 4, no. 39, repr. (as copy after Giotto), cat. no. 39.
Adolfo Venturi Storia dell'arte italiana. 11 vols., Milan, 1901-1939, Vol. 5, p. 292, fig. 242, ill.
Antonio Muñoz "Reliquie artistiche della Vecchia Basilica Vaticanna a Boville Ernica" in Bollettino d'arte. vol. 5, 1911, p. 182.
Bryson Burroughs "Drawings from the Pembroke Collection." in The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 14, no. 6, New York, June 1919, fig. no. 138, pp. 136, 138, ill.
Lionello Venturi "La 'Navicella' di Giotto." L'arte. vol. 25, Italy, 1922, fig. no. 2, p. 50, ill.
Bernard Berenson The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. 3 vols., amplified edition. Chicago, 1938, fig. no. 7 (vol. 3), p. 326 (vol. 1), p. 254 (vol. 2), ill.
Wilhelm Paeseler "Giottos Navicella und ihr spätantikes Vorbild" Römisches Jahrburch für Kunstgeschichte. vol. 5, 1941, fig. no. figs. 85, 93, pp. 49-162, ill.
Walter Mehring European Drawings from the Collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Portfolio of Collotype Reproductions [Vol. 1: Italian Drawings; Vol. 2: Flemish, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, and British drawings; Vol. 3: "New Series": Italian, Flemish, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, and British drawings]. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 3 vols., New York, 1942–44, cat. no. 1 (vol.1), fig. no. 1, ill.
Bernhard Degenhart Italienische Zeichnungen des frühen 15. Jahrhunderts. Basel, 1949, pp. 26-27.
Claudia Refice "Parri Spinelli nell'Arte Fiorentina del sec 15." Commentari. vol. 2, 1951, fig. no. pl. 58, fig. 239, p. 198.
Bernard Berenson, Luisa Vertova I disegni dei pittori fiorentini. 3 vols., Revised and enlarged. Milan, 1961, fig. no. 7 (vol. II), p. 425 (vol. II), ill.
Claus Virch "A Page from Vasari's Book of Drawings." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.s. vol. 19, no. 7, New York, March, 1961, fig. no. 4r, 8v, pp. 185-193, ill.
Walters Art Gallery The International Style: The Arts in Europe Around 1400. Exh. cat. Baltimore, Maryland, October, 23-December 2, 1962, cat. no. no. 31, fig. no. pl. 43, p. 33, ill.
Bernard Berenson Italian Pictures of the Renaissance, Florentine School. vol. 1, London, 1963, fig. no. fig. 47, ill.
Jacob Bean 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1964, cat. no. 2, fig. no. 2, ill.
Bernhard Degenhart, Annegrit Schmitt Corpus der Italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450: Teil I: Süd-und Mittelitalien. Vol. 1 of 4, Berlin, 1968, vol. 2, cat. no. 181 and p. 634; vol. 4, pl. 203a, cat. no. no. 181, fig. no. pl. 203a, pp. 634, I-4.
Maris Fossi Todorow "L'Italia delle origini a Pisanello" I Disegni dei maestri a cura di Walter Vitzthum. Milan, Italy, 1970, fig. no. pl. 21, p. 84, ill.
Licia Ragghianti Collobi Il libro de' disegni del Vasari. 2 vols., Florence, 1974, Vol. 1, p. 28; vol. 2, fig. 13, ill.
Mark J. Zucker "Parri Spinelli Drawings Reconsidered." Master Drawings. vol. 19, New York, 1981, fig. no. pls. 18, 21, pp. 431-441., ill.
Jacob Bean, Lawrence Turčić 15th and 16th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982, cat. no. 164, fig. no. 164, p. 170, ill.
James Byam Shaw "Review of an exhibition of 15th and 16th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Master Drawings. vol. 21, no. 4, New York, Winter 1983-1984, cat. no. 164, fig. no. 164, pp. 169-170, ill.
Edward J. Olszewski, Burton L. Dunbar, Midwest Art History Society Drawings in Midwestern Collections: Volume 1, Early Works. Columbia and London, 1996, Discussed under cat. 20, see pp. 102-110., fig. no. 20-A, pp. 105, 110, ill.
Luciano Bellosi Come un prato fiorito: studi sull'arte tardogotica. Milan, 2000, pp. 177-78 n. 284.
Diane DeGrazia, Carter E. Foster Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. cat. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 2000, fig. no. 1, pp. 18-21, ill.
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