The Evangelist Luke

Fra Giovanni Angelico



The Evangelist Luke

Fra Giovanni Angelico

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Fra Angelico. The drawing is of a man who is looking at a book that he is holding at arm's length. He has a mainly bald head with wisps of hair at the side, and appears to be seated. The top half of the drawing is covered with lines of handwriting. In the description below this drawing is B. The other drawing referred to, A., is 1924.73. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "1, A and B. FRA ANGELICO (b. 1387; d. 1455) A. THE EVANGELIST MATTHEW B. THE EVANGELIST LUKE Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Kerrich Collection). From the Resta, Marchetti, and Somers Collections (the g. 25 in the lower r. correspond to the marks supposed to have been put on when in Lord Somers' Collection, which was sold in 1717. See C. F. Bell, Christ Church Drawings, p. 18). A. Bistre on green prepared paper heightened with white. B. Pen and bistre and wash. 16.3 x 15 cm. (6 3/8 x 5 7/8 in.). A. (Obverse). Inscribed in the upper l. background Amore mai more/ama. The upper line (the first three words) shows the old gilt over bistre foundation (scarcely legible in the reproduction as the gilt is not reproduced and appears indistinctly as white). There is a flourish in the bistre at the end of the upper line, beyond the part that is gilt, which makes one suspect an earlier form of the inscription beneath, which was probably the Latin Amor non moritur. The dates of Angelico's birth and death were probably added early eighteenth century. B. (Reverse). Inscribed in an early eighteenth-century hand: nella Minerva / fù sepolto alla porticella / del Choro, e douendosi, fare / quelle sepolture noue fu / stimato di levar la sua / lapida da terra doue giaceva / e rizzarla al muro doue hora / stà accanto all' Auello dell' Aqua / Santa. Ivi stà il suo Ritratto e / questi versi Non mihi sit laudi fuerim velut alter Apelles Sed quod lucra tuis omnia Christe dabam Altera nam terris opera extant altera celo Urbs me Ioannem flos tulit Ætrurie. Comparison with a manuscript by Padre Sebastiano Resta on Corraggio a Roma (written about 1710), recently in the hands of Messrs. Davis and Orioli, establishes the identity of the hand. The verses are from the tomb still extant in S. Maria sopra Minerva, Rome. The figure on the obverse roughly corresponds to the fresco of the Evangelist Matthew in the Chapel of Nicolas V in the Vatican, done between 1445 and 1455 (reproduced, F. Schotmüller, Fra Angelico, Klassiker der Kunst, Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1911, p. 184). It differs, however, in details of gold, &c., and if a copy, it would more probably be based on a lost study by Fra Angelico than on the fresco. The style of drawing is by no means inconsistent with the study of a head for the St. Nicolas Chapel on one side of the Windsor sheet (Berenson, 163), and a very strong support to the authenticity of the drawing is supplied by the slight sketch on the reverse in pen and bistre, which is comparable to the pen drawings on the other side of the Windsor sheet. The drawing of the Evangelist Luke, with its differences from the fresco, is even more convincingly a preliminary idea (and not a copy) than the more finished study on the front of the sheet. One inevitably thinks of the possibility of Benozzo Gozzoli or some other immediate follower of Fra Angelico being responsible for the drawing. Benozzo Gozzoli was working as Angelico's assistant at Rome and Orvieto about 1445-49, and himself painted a ceiling with similar evangelists in its four triangles in the church of St. Francesco at Montefalco in 1452 (reproduced L'Arte XIII, 1910, p. 437). He obviously based his designs on Fra Angelico, but the differences seen in his frescoes from those of Fra Angelico are not such as are shown in the present drawings, which are much nearer the master's designs. Moreover there is nothing in the drawings which tallies with the generally accepted examples of Benozzo. And considering the relation of studies to fresco, and the quality of the drawings themselves, I think there is every reason to regard them as the work of Fra Angelico himself rather than of some unknown follower. If this claim is admitted, the sheet forms a record of considerable importance to add to the two examples accepted as authentic in Berenson's Catalogue, the David in the British Museum (Berenson 1621), and the Windsor drawing to which reference has already been made. A. M. H."


Object Name

The Evangelist Luke

Creators Name

Fra Giovanni Angelico

Date Created

1924

accession number

1924.74

Place of creation

Europe

Medium


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