MetPublications

Consummate painter, draftsman, sculptor, and architect, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) was celebrated for his disegno, a term that embraces both drawing and conceptual design, which was considered in the Renaissance to be the foundation of all artistic disciplines. To his contemporary Giorgio Vasari, Michelangelo was “the divine draftsman and designer” whose work embodied the unity of the arts. Beautifully illustrated with more than 350 drawings, paintings, sculptures, and architectural views, this book establishes the centrality of disegno to Michelangelo’s work. Carmen C. Bambach presents a comprehensive and engaging narrative of the artist’s long career in Florence and Rome, beginning with his training under the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and the sculptor Bertoldo and ending with his seventeen-year appointment as chief architect of Saint Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. The chapters relate Michelangelo’s compositional drawings, sketches, life studies, and full-scale cartoons to his major commissions—such as the ceiling frescoes and the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, the church of San Lorenzo and its New Sacristy (Medici Chapel) in Florence, and Saint Peter’s—offering fresh insights into his creative process. Also explored are Michelangelo’s influential role as a master and teacher of disegno, his literary and spiritual interests, and the virtuoso drawings he made as gifts for intimate friends, such as the nobleman Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and Vittoria Colonna, the marchesa of Pescara. Complementing Bambach’s text are thematic essays by leading authorities on the art of Michelangelo. Meticulously researched, compellingly argued, and richly illustrated, this book is a major contribution to our understanding of this timeless artist.

This handsome volume presents selections from one of America's preeminent private collections of Old Master drawings, assembled over the last quarter century by David M. and Julie Tobey. Dating from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, seventy-two drawings—several previously unpublished—are featured. The diverse array of holdings consists principally of works by Italian masters but also by artists whose careers brought them south of the Alps, among them such brilliant draftsmen as Correggio, Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, Salvator Rosa, Poussin, Bernini, Canaletto, Tiepolo, and their contemporaries. Impressive in their variety, the drawings include figure and composition studies, landscapes, portraits, botanical drawings, motifs inspired by classical antiquity, and designs for painted compositions. Among the highlights are a splendid study of the head of Julius Caesar by Andrea del Sarto, a lively sheet of sketches by Perino del Vaga, a stunningly naturalistic study of a nude boy by Ludovico Carracci, a poetic Guercino landscape, charming topographical views by Luca Carlegarijs, Canaletto, and Bernardo Bellotto, a rare composition drawing by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and a richly painted allegory by Giovanni David, to name just a few of the superlative examples in this carefully formed collection. The catalogue includes lengthy entries on each drawing and illuminating biographies of the artists. Every drawing in the Tobey Collection is reproduced in color and accompanied by numerous comparative illustrations. The contributors are Linda Wolk-Simon, Curator; George R. Goldner, Drue Heinz Chairman; Carmen C. Bambach and Perrin Stein, Curators; and Stijn Alsteens, Associate Curator, all of the Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Mary Vaccaro, Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Arlington.

"I say to you briefly that by drawing I mean all those things that can be formed with the value, or force, of simple lines." This definition was offered by Agnolo Bronzino (Florentine, 1503–1572) in a dialogue written in 1560–70. Drawings by this famed Italian Mannerist painter are extremely rare. For the first time ever, nearly all the sixty sheets known to be reasonably attributed to this leading artist of sixteenth-century Italy are brought together in this important and beautiful publication. Combining detailed scholarly content and lavish illustrations, the volume explores Bronzino's talent as a draftsman, together with his mastery of anatomy and perspective. These qualities are vividly apparent in each stroke of the chalk, pen, or brush in works on paper that range from studies of singular heads to modelli of complex scenes made for tapestries. From 1540 onward, Bronzino was court painter to Cosimo de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and herein you will see examples of his portraits of Cosimo, his wife, Duchess Eleonora di Toledo, and their children. They demonstrate Bronzino's sensitivity for elegant composition as well as his acute powers to create mood and capture the psychology of his aristocratic sitters. One of the artist's most ambitious projects for the princely couple is a fresco cycle for the private Chapel of Eleonora di Toledo, and this book includes drawings he executed for that Chapel in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Also included are sheets that contributed to his designs for a series of tapestries on the Old Testament Story of Joseph, intended for one of the audience halls of the Palazzo Vecchio. Bronzino was among the founders of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence, the first art academy in Europe, and he is said to have had many pupils. The younger generations of Florentine artists particularly admired him for his technical virtuosity as a painter, and even Giorgio Vasari grudgingly praised him for his powers as a disegnatore (designer and draftsman) in his well-known Lives of the Artists. The five essays in this catalogue cover the subject of Bronzino's draftsmanship through consideration of his life, the critical responses to his drawings from his lifetime to the twentieth century, his theory and practice in drawing, and his portraits. The authors contributed research that adds greatly to our understanding of Bronzino's place in the history of Florentine drawing. In the sixty-two entries that follow, each individual sheet is analyzed in substantial detail. Every drawing is illustrated in color and is accompanied by comparative photographs. Sixty-two related paintings and tapestries follow the entry section, reproduced as full-page color illustrations that further enhance knowledge of Bronzino's drawing even as they display his celebrated accomplishments in those mediums. This engaging volume accompanies an exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The curators, who also wrote the entries in this catalogue, are Carmen C. Bambach, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Janet Cox-Rearick, Distinguished Professor Emerita, The Graduate Center, City University of New York; and George R. Goldner, Drue Heinz Chairman, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Energetic, incisive, spontaneous, and expressive, the drawings of Filippino Lippi (1457/58–1504) are among the most original and creative of the Italian Renaissance. Produced in the artistic and humanist circles of late fifteenth-century Florence and Rome for such illustrious patrons as Lorenzo de' Medici, il Magnifico, Filippino's drawings were subsequently cherished by many esteemed collectors, including Giorgio Vasari, Pierre-Jean Mariette, and Sir Thomas Lawrence. The exceptionally large numbers of Filippino's drawings that survive trace the progress of his career, from his training with his father, Fra Filippo Lippi, and Sandro Botticelli to his untimely death at the age of forty-six. Filippino's drawings display a rare freedom of handling, a taste for abstraction and mannerism, and a precocious concern with movement and expression. They share with his paintings a predilection for elaborate costumes, fanciful hairstyles, ornate settings, and the spirited reinvention of antique designs. And they were a source of inspiration for other artists, among them Raffaellino del Garbo, Tommaso, Piero di Cosimo, and even Raphael. This book accompanies a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the first important show devoted to the drawings of Filippino Lippi. Essays by experts in the field explore Filippino's development as a draftsman, his techniques, his designs for the decorative arts, his drawings after the antique, and his work as a painter; entries on the individual drawings consider issues of authenticity, dating, and relationship to paintings, as well as the contributions of his circle. A documented chronology of the artist's life is offered as well. Written for both a scholarly and general audience, the volume is lavishly supported with color reproductions of all the works included in the exhibition, which are shown to scale when possible, numerous comparative illustrations, and over forty color-plates reproducing Filippino's most important paintings. Provenances, complete references, an extensive bibliography, and an index are provided.

This groundbreaking book explores the evolving concept of unfinishedness as essential to understanding art movements from the Renaissance to the present day. Unfinished features more than 200 works, created in a variety of media, by artists ranging from Leonardo, Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, and Cézanne to Picasso, Warhol, Twombly, Freud, Richter, and Nauman. What unites these works, across centuries and media, is that each one displays some aspect of being unfinished. Essays and case studies by major contemporary scholars address this key concept from the perspective of both the creator and the viewer, probing the impact that this long artistic trajectory—which can be traced back to the first century—has had on modern and contemporary art. The book investigates the degrees to which instances of incompleteness were accidental or intentional experimental or conceptual. Also included are illuminating interviews with contemporary artists, including Tuymans, Celmins, and Marden, and parallel considerations of the unfinished in literature and film. The result is a multidisciplinary approach and thought-provoking analysis that provide valuable insight into the making, meaning, and critical reception of the unfinished in art.

Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452–1519) stands as a supreme icon in Western consciousness—the very embodiment of the universal Renaissance genius. With much of his work lost or unfinished, the key to his legacy can be found in the enormous body of his extant drawings and manuscript notes. This publication offers a unified and fascinating portrait of Leonardo as a draftsman, integrating his diverse roles as an artist, scientist, inventor, theorist, and teacher. Essays written by the world's leading Leonardo scholars investigate the significant implications of Leonardo's left-handedness both for the connoisseurship of his drawings and for a reconstruction of his artistic personality; the relationship between word and image in Leonardo's drawings and manuscripts; problems of attribution and authenticity in the critical evaluation of Leonardo's graphic oeuvre; Leonardo's early drapery studies; the role of the artist's father; and the special role of drawn frames or boundaries in Leonardo's design process. Detailed descriptions of 138 individual works survey the wide variety of drawing types that Leonardo used, and also include a small group of works by artists critical to his artistic development in Florence and to his multifaceted activity in Milan. A chronological framework is also provided to shed light on his extraordinary life and career.

The first of a special two-part edition of Recent Acquisitions, this Bulletin celebrates works acquired by the Museum in 2019 and 2020, many of which were gifts bestowed in honor of the Museum’s 150th anniversary year. Highlights of this volume include a sumptuous set of handscrolls depicting The Tale of Genji, a second-century Roman wellhead, a drawing of a landscape by French artist Claude Lorrain, and nearly one hundred Indian paintings. This publication also honors the many generous contributions from donors that make possible the continued growth of The Met's collection.