Copy after Michelangelo's "Aurora"

Artist Bartolommeo Passerotti (Italian, 1529 - 1592)

Dateca. 1550

MediumPen and brown ink and red chalk on paper

DimensionsUnframed: 17 3/8 x 11 1/2 inches (44.15 x 29.21 cm)
Framed: 26 x 20 x 1 inches (66.04 x 50.8 x 2.54 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number39-37

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Paintings, Drawings, and Prints of the Renaissance, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, March 19–26, 1961, no cat.

The Arts of Man, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, October–December 1962, hors cat.

Drawing and the Human Figure, 1400–1964, University of Iowa Art Department, Iowa City, May 24–August 2, 1964, no. 27.

Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, MO, September 22–December 3, 1989; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 17–March 25, 1990, unnumbered.

Master European Drawings from Polish Collections, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 17–June 6, 1993, hors cat. (NAMA addition).

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23–August 18, 1996; Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20–November 24, 1996; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996–March 2, 1997; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 12–September 6, 1998, no. 10.

Giorgio Vasari and Court Culture in Late Renaissance Italy, Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, September 15, 2012–January 28, 2013, no cat.

The Human Body, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 29, 2010–June 6, 2011; July 18, 2018–January 13, 2019, no cat.

Gallery Label

This fine drawing is a copy after Michelangelo's statue of Aurora, one of the figure sculptures that decorate the tomb of Lorenzo de Medici in the New Sacrity in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The artist has copied the whole figure in red chalk and details of the feet on a larger scale in both red chalk and pen and brown ink. Making copies after Michelangelo's tomb in San Lorenzo became almost an academic necessity for budding artists.

Provenance

Durlacher Brothers, New York, stock book no. 950003, by December 2, 1939;

Purchased from Durlacher by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1939.

Published References

Wallace J. Tomasini, Drawing and the Human Figure, 1400–1964, exh. cat. (Iowa City: University of Iowa, 1964), unpaginated.

Possibly Corinna Höper, Barolomeo Passarotti (1529–1592) (Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1987).

Roger Ward and Mark S. Weil, Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, exh. cat. (St. Louis: Washington University Gallery of Art, 1989), 6, 9, 17, (repro.).

Patricia Corbett, “Connoisseur’s World: Power Lines,” Connoisseur 219, no. 934 (November 1989): 44.

Roger Ward in Katrin Bellinger, Drawings Related to Sculpture, 1520–1620, exh. cat. (Munich: Katrin Bellinger Kunsthandel, 1992), 12, 14, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 153.

Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 59–61.

John Brandenburg, “Drawing as Work of Art Given Due Respect in Philbrook Exhibit,” Oklahoman (June 28, 1996): https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1996/06/28/drawing-as-work-of-art-given-due-respect-in-philbrook-exhibit/62350959007/.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 61, (repro.).

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