Studies of the Head of an Infant (after a three-dimensional model)

During the Italian Renaissance, drawing sculptures was a fundamental step in the training of a young draftsman. On this sheet, the artist known as Poppi (from his birthplace in Tuscany) drew a group of six studies of heads after a three-dimensional model, a sculpture or marble relief of a putto or a cherub. The artist changed his position point of view for each study, filling the page with the same motif from various angles in order to achieve a full understanding of its form and volume. The present sheet is directly comparable to a large series of drawings in the Uffizi, Florence done similarly from cast copies and sculptures. This type of smiling, or laughing, infant heads surprisingly resembles examples by Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570). The sheet may date between Poppi’s 1572 trip to Rome - where he was greatly exposed to sculpture, both antique and contemporary - and 1574, the year of his admission to the Accademia del Disegno in Florence.