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Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's "Expulsion from the Garden of Eden", and other Figure Studies (verso)

Anonymous Italian Artist after Masaccio (Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Mone Casai) Italian
After Giotto di Bondone Italian
ca. 1420
Not on view
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.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Free Copy of Giotto's "Navicella" (recto); Copy of Adam in Masaccio's "Expulsion from the Garden of Eden", and other Figure Studies (verso)
  • Artist: Parri Spinelli (Italian, Arezzo 1387–1453 Arezzo) (recto)
  • 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
  • Object Number: 19.76.2
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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