Studies for a Picture of the Ten Thousand Martyrs

Carpaccio

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Carpaccio. It is drawn slightly in red chalk, and shows a mountain or hillside rising in the background. A circular shape is above the peak, enclosing what may by the outline of a figure. Crowds of people are roughly sketched in the foreground, and some tall pole-like structures stand to the right-hand side. These are identified in the text below as crosses, with figures hanging from them. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society (recto is 1933.399; verso is 1933.400): "Nos. 6, 7 VITTORE CARPACCIO (b. about 1455-6; d. between 1524 and 1527) Recto. STUDIES FOR GROUPS OF SPECTATORS IN A PICTURE OF THE TEN THOUSAND MARTYRS Verso. SKETCH FOR THE UPPER PART OF THE SAME PICTURE Collection of Henry Oppenheimer, Esq. From the Sunderland and Heseltine Collections. Red chalk. Watermark resembles Briquet 2575. 21.2 x 29.7 cm. Recto. These groups of youthful figures, somewhat loosely drawn in red chalk (the use of which is in itself a mark of the master's later time), were no doubt sketched in order to be used in the picture of the Ten Thousand Martyrs on Mount Ararat now in the Academy at Venice. But they were in point of fact discarded, and the only figure in the painting which corresponds at all closely to one in the drawing is that in the right-hand bottom corner, of a soldier standing in profile to the left and resting on a lance. This figure agrees pretty nearly with the rearmost one in the group of three in the upper right-hand corner of the drawing, and fairly well with the single figure, somewhat differently balanced, lower down. The same motive seems to have been used also in the fantastically dressed figure in the lower right-hand corner in Carpaccio's fragmentary painting of a Crucifixion in the Uffizi: where also occurs a seated figure of a man holding his knee which recalls, somewhat distantly, the foremost figure of the three in the upper group of the drawing already mentioned. It should be noted that this drawing is mistakenly described as acquarellato in the standard life of the painter by Ludwig and Molmenti (Milan, 1906, pp. 284/5), where, moreover, the fact is overlooked that it is on the same sheet with the sketch given in our next reproduction. The very slight and tentative sketch on the verso shows in the background the rounded summit of a high mountain, with an indication of the heavens opening above it, and in the foreground a number of victims hung on very tall crosses, with groups of figures standing below. Like the drawing above, given from the front of the same sheet, it evidently shows a first idea, which in the execution was modified almost out of recognition, for the picture above referred to in the Venice Academy. S. C."