Getty Museum

Studies of Christ's Loincloth (recto); Studies of Bookbindings and of Christ's Loincloth (verso)

Date

about 1490

Medium

Pen and brown and black ink, brown and gray wash (recto); pen and brown and black ink, brown and gray wash, heightened with white gouache (verso)

Culture

German

Department

Drawings

Institution

Getty Museum

Nine interlocking studies of Christ's loincloth create an effect of restless movement across the surface of this sheet. The artist, known only as the Master of the Coburg Roundels, experimented with showing Christ's torso from various angles and wrapping the loincloth in various ways around his body. He built up the folds of most of the draperies with quick hatching and added points of visual interest by modeling four of them in wash. The verso demonstrates a similarly lively visual interplay among its various elements. The artist first lightly sketched the two studies of book bindings, then later added two, more heavily modeled drapery studies in the center and a brass corner fitting in the upper right corner, illusionistically modeled with wash and bodycolor. The delicately drawn bookbindings are so carefully rendered that scholars can identify them as southern German, possibly made in the town of Augsburg in the late 1400s.

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