The head of Anchises, c.1587

Federico Barocci (1535-1612)

The head of Anchises, c.1587

c.1587

Coloured chalks on blue paper

38.0 x 26.0 cm

PROVENANCE: Royal Collection by c.1810

Federico Barocci was one of the most innovative painters working in Italy in the later sixteenth century. He combined the strong local colour and elaborate compositions of high Mannerism with intense observation from the life, to produce a body of work of great richness and variety. A chronic illness restricted Barocci’s artistic activity to short periods in the morning and evening, but despite (or maybe because of) this he prepared his compositions meticulously. Hundreds of his studies survive, in vigorous pen and wash or carefully blended chalks. For his head studies Barocci exploited coloured chalks, both natural and fabricated, more extensively than any other artist before the eighteenth century. This medium allowed him to determine both lighting and colour in a preparatory sheet, and thus he could use his limited painting time as efficiently as possible.

The drawing is a study for the head of Anchises in Barocci’s painting of Aeneas rescuing his father from the burning Troy. Virgil’s epic poem the Aeneid begins with the sack of Troy by the Greeks; Aeneas escaped from the city carrying his aged father Anchises on his back. Barocci painted two versions of the composition. The first was executed for the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in 1587-8, dispatched to Prague in spring 1589 and now lost. Ten years later Barocci painted a second version for Giuliano della Rovere, now in the Borghese Gallery in Rome. Much of the jaw of Anchises in the painting is obscured by Aeneas’s helmet; that the whole face is seen here suggests that Barocci studied the head of the old man from the life.

RL 5233

Text adapted from Holbein to Hockney: Drawings from the Royal Collection