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Reclining Male Nude

Creator

Italian Artist · 1510–1563

Francesco de' Rossi was the son of a weaver in Florence. At an early age, he chose to pursue his interest in drawing and painting instead of following his father's profession. His first major commission came at age twenty-one from Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, whose name he adopted. At age fourteen, Francesco Salviati trained with one of the leading sculptors in Florence. Five years later, he entere

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Date: about 1550
Medium: Red chalk heightened with white chalk
Culture: Italian
Department: Drawings
Institution: Getty Museum

In this highly polished chalk study, Mannerist Francesco Salviati combined tight, sure contours with subtle modeling to suggest the smoothness of the marble sculpture on which he based his rendition. He introduced white chalk highlights so economically that they are almost invisible, never interrupting the smooth light-to-dark gradations that shape his forms. Salviati based this drawing on the *Hercules Chiaramonti* , a classical sculpture in the Vatican Museums. To make a complete figure, he reconstructed parts missing from the damaged statue: the head, right forearm, and right leg below the knee. Salviati's talent made this inanimate, incomplete figure appear alive, animatedly twisting to gaze wide-eyed off the sheet.

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