Description
The Madonna and Child with Saints Crispin, John the Baptist, Francis, and Roch: A compositional cartoon for the Madonna dei Calzolari black and white chalk, some outlines with indentations, on sixteen joined sheets of brown paper, arched 553/4 x 75 1/8 in. (1415 x 1910 mm.) EXHIBITION Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 15th and 16th Century Master Drawings, 28 June-9 October 1988, p. 1 of the handlist. NOTES A preparatory cartoon for a fresco commissioned by the Sienese Guild of Shoemakers (the Calzolari ) on 3 May 1530 for the fa‡ade of a house by the Piazza dei Tolomei in Siena, located close to the Church of San Cristofano where the guild was based (A. Hayum, Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, il Sodoma, New York and London, 1976, pp. 264-5). The earliest description of the fresco comes from Giorgio Vasari's Life of Sodoma, published in 1550: 'A Madonna with the Child in her arms, Saints John, Francis and Roch and Saint Crispin, the Patron Saint of the men of that Guild, who has a shoe in his hand. In the heads of these figures, and in all the rest, Giovanni Antonio acquitted himself very well.' Unfortunately no trace of the fresco now survives. Milanesi, in his 1906 edition of Vasari's vite attributes the destruction to smoke from a neighbouring blacksmith's shop (G. Vasari, Le vite de piu eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori, ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1906, VI, p. 391). The connection of the present cartoon with the lost fresco was made by Dr. Ralph Toledano, and is confirmed by the presence to the left of the Madonna of the figure of Saint Crispin, patron saint of the shoemakers' guild, holding a sandal. The commission may have had added significance to Sodoma, whose father Giacomo was himself a shoemaker. A cartoon which may represent an early idea for the Shoemakers' commission is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1956, II, no. 700, pl. CLVI). The figure identified in the present cartoon as Saint Crispin appears to the left of the Madonna, while a Bishop saint stands behind and to the right. That cartoon, which measures 391/2 x 291/4 in. (1005 x 758 mm.), is not pricked but some light indentations are visible around the Christ Child. It is made up of four sheets laid vertically rather than horizontally as in the present lot, and has been trimmed. The maximum surviving size of the sheets 478 x 410 mm., although the placing of the median drying folds suggests that the sheets were originally of a similar size to those in the present work. A third cartoon, for The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catharine of 1539-40 now in the Galleria Nazionale, Rome, and measuring 351/2 x 271/4 in. (906 x 692 mm.), is in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich (B. Degenhart, Italienische Zeichnungen, 15.-18. Jahrhundert, exhib. cat., Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, 1967, no. 71, pl. 27). A fourth cartoon, of the Holy Family with Angels, measuring 283/4 x 203/4 in. (730 x 526 mm.), was sold at Sotheby's London, 27 March 1969, lot 17. Sodoma was apprenticed in his native Vercelli to the minor Piedmontese painter Giovanni Martino Spanzotti. Little is known of his early work although the strong influence of Leonardo da Vinci on his development has led to the suggestion that he spent several years in Milan around 1500. This influence is particularly evident in the present cartoon which both compositionally, with its pyramidal arrangement of central figures, and technically, with its broadly-stumped black chalk sfumato, recall Leonardo's cartoon of the Holy Family with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist now in the National Gallery, London. By 1502, Sodoma was active in Siena, and the majority of his mature works can be associated with Tuscan commissions. Of particular significance for the present cartoon was Sodoma's work in Rome through the patronage of the Sienese Chigi family. In 1508 Sodoma painted the ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican, a decorative scheme which was completed by Raphael. He was again in Rome in 1516 to decorate part of Agostino Chigi's sumptuous villa later known as the Villa Farnesina, a project with which Raphael was also closely involved. It seems likely that it was during these collaborations with Raphael that Sodoma would have learnt the latest techniques for large-scale fresco production that are evident in the present cartoon. Raphael's high regard for his older colleague is indicated by placing him directly next to his own self-portrait in his fresco of the School of Athens in the Stanze della Segnatura at the Vatican. Between 1525 and 1536 Sodoma completed a number of important commissions in Siena. After the downfall of the Petruchi family and the lessening of Papal influence after the Sack of Rome in 1527, he seems to have acted as a semi-official painter to the Sienese Republic in close and constructive rivalry with Domenico Beccafumi. Most important of these works was a series of frescoes for the Palazzo Pubblico, partly completing the cycle of decorations begun by the Lorenzetti in the 14th Century (A. Hayum, op. cit., nos. 29-32). In addition to these public works, Sodoma painted a number of altarpieces and banners for the numerous guilds and confraternities, notably a banner for the Compagnia di San Sebastiano, now in the Pitti Palace, Florence, and a set of four panels for a cataletto for the Compagnia di San Giovanni della Morte (A. Hayum, op. cit., nos. 24 and 26). In 1530, the year of the commission for the Shoemakers' Guild, Sodoma painted a fresco of the Nativity for the city gate at San Viene, and a Piet…, known as the Madonna of the Raven, for the fa‡ade of the Casa Bambagini Galletti. While a significant number of Sodoma's pictures survive, his working methods and draughtsmanship are less well known. Vasari, in his generally biased and sensationalist life of the artist, castigates him for lack of preparation for his frescoes, a view that the heavily-worked cartoon for the Madonna dei Calzolari must call into question. Tracing the image through from the cartoon to the wall involved lacerating or perforating the paper, a process that was by necessity destructive. As a result, very few working cartoons survive. However, from the end of the 15th Century artists began to appreciate the value of cartoons as independent works of art, and they were often included as part of the contract, employed as gifts or retained in the studio. Care was therefore taken to avoid destroying the original. Rather than using the finished compositional cartoon directly on the wall, a copy would be made on a second sheet, and this 'substitute' cartoon used for the preparation of the fresco. These copies were made by laying the cartoon over a blank sheet, separating the two with a form of carbon paper. The contours would then be gently gone over with a stylus, leaving an outline of the composition on the second sheet. The present work is a fine example of a finished cartoon, known as the ben finito cartone (C.C. Bambach, Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop, Cambridge, 1999, chapters 7-8). This process reached its greatest state of technical proficiency in Rome in the early years of the 16th Century, most notably in the great fresco cycles of Raphael and Michelangelo. It seems likely that Sodoma would have developed his techniques while working under Raphael's influence in the Vatican in 1508 and at the Chigi villa in 1516. Certainly the technical arrangement of the present cartoon, on sheets of paper of folio reale size, is similar to Raphael's cartoons for the Stanza della Segnatura, now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan (C.C. Bambach, op. cit., p. 40, fig. 30). The sheets in the present cartoon measure approximately 435 x 565 mm., and are joined to their neighbours with an overlap of approximately 10-15 mm.
