Reclining Male Figure
One of the leading Venetian artists of the sixteenth century, Jacopo Tintoretto was celebrated for the monumental narrative scenes he painted in numerous churches and confraternities throughout the city. These paintings are densely populated with dynamic, twisting, and sharply foreshortened figures. As a preparatory step in the creation of these complex figural poses, Tintoretto produced numerous studies on paper. The reclining pose of this figure was probably inspired by Michelangelo’s monumental sculptures in the Medici Chapel in Florence, small-scale copies of which Tintoretto kept as models in his studio, according to his seventeenth-century biographer. With gridlines to aid in the transfer of the design to canvas, this study may have been preparatory for the similarly posed figure of Saint Peter that appears in a painting of the Agony in the Garden (Private Collection).
Artwork Details
- Title: Reclining Male Figure
- Artist: Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) (Italian, Venice 1518/19–1594 Venice)
- Date: 1560s
- Medium: Black chalk on blue paper; squared in black chalk.
- Dimensions: 6 5/8 x 12 5/8 in. (16.9 x 32 cm)
- Classification: Drawings
- Credit Line: Robert Lehman Collection, 1975
- Object Number: 1975.1.532
- Curatorial Department: The Robert Lehman Collection
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Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)
Doge Pasquale Cicogna
1585–94
Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)
18th century
Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti)
1519–94
Multiple artists/makers
1829
Multiple artists/makers
1829
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