Seated Male Figure with the Head of an Onlooker (recto); Standing Male Figure in a Monk's Habit (verso)

Born into the Florentine tradition of drawing and design, Poccetti was a magnificent and fluent draftsman of the figure, and a number of large-scale studies after life in black or red chalk can attest to his technical virtuosity. This type of subtly observed study from the life model was key in Poccetti's attempt to reform the tired Mannerist vocabulary of the figure of the later 16th century, which was mostly derived from memory, for it led to a naturalistic sense of form and movement.

This double-sided sheet of spirited figural studies was executed from the live model. The figures are articulated with broad patches of light and shadow. The manner of rendering with parallel hatching and little blending of the strokes is boldly pictorial. The heads in the recto study are especially compelling for their psychological presence adn economy of drawing. On the recto, the seated figure holds a book with his left hand, and seems to hold a writing implement. He raises his head, as he turns away from a lightly sketched interlocutor. On the verso, the standing man wears a monk's habit, probably that of the Servite order.

Poccetti's drawing can be dated to ca. 1600-1605, as a figure of a monk on the verso of the sheet is akin to figure studies for the lunette frescoes at the Chiostro Grande of Santissima Annunziata, Florence, including the ‘Death of the Beati Uguccione and Sostegno’ (Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi inv. nos. 8646F, 8645F, and 851F, Florence). Another comparable drawing is a late ‘Study for a Monk in Berlin’ (Kupferstichkabinett, inv. KdZ 7718 verso). The Museum owns eight drawings by Bernardino Poccetti: one of these is an early compositional sketch for the same scene in the Santissima Annunziata fresco cycle (inv. no. 80.3.320).
The Metropolitan Museum owns a total of four drawings by Poccetti which are studies for the important frescoes in the Annunziata: see inv. nos. 61.178.2 (the Death of Saint Alexis Falconieri), 64.48.1 (Saint Philip Benizi Converting two Women at Todi) and 80.3.320 (Figure Studies)

(Carmen C. Bambach, 2000)