Minneapolis Institute of Art

Female Figure Reclining (Allegory of Fame Vanquished by Time), Architectural Studies (recto); Three Studies of a Female Figure Reclining, Studies of Sculptural Ornament (verso)

Baldassare Franceschini (il Volterrano)

Date

1660s–70s

Medium

Black chalk (recto), black chalk with touches of pen and brown ink (verso)

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Volterrano’s boundless imagination is on display in this lively double-sided sheet, where the artist’s hand seems to race to keep pace with the inventions pouring onto the page. In addition to some rapidly sketched thoughts for a chapel wall design and sculpted decoration, he explored four ways to represent a woman swooning. In the study on the recto, which was brought to the highest degree of finish, the figure clearly has wings and holds a trumpet in her lap, identifying her as an allegory of fame. The drawing relates to Volterrano’s ceiling fresco in the Palazzo Lanfredini in Florence, Time Plucking the Wings of Fame, which depicts Fame falling at Time’s feet, her trumpet broken beneath her. The artist’s first thought for the violent lunging gesture of the allegory of time might be taking shape in the scribbles jotted at the upper right of the verso. Italy, Europe

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