Lot 127: Paolo di Bernardino d?Antonio, called Fra Paolino , Pistoia 1490 (?) - 1547 Study of a dominican kneeling in prayer at the foot of a cross, and separate studies of hands Black chalk heightened with white chalk

Black chalk heightened with white chalk

measurements note 273 by 205 mm

The present study seems to be preparatory, although in reverse, to the figure of a Dominican kneeling at the foot of the Cross in Fra Paolino's Crucifixion in the church of San Domenico, Pistoia (fig. 1).υ1 The two hands drawn on the left of the sheet are studies for both hands of the crucified Christ.

Fra Paolino was the son of the painter Bernardino del Signoraccio. We do not know when he joined the Dominican order, nor when he started his training with Fra Bartolommeo, but when the master died in 1517 Fra Paolino inherited the bottega. This is a very interesting addition to the corpus of drawings given to Fra Paolino, which is mainly limited to studies of the Madonna and Child executed in black chalk heightened with white chalk.υ2 1. A. Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana, La Pittura del Cinquecento, Milan 1925, vol. IX, part 1, p. 390, fig. 282

2. See for instance C. Fischer, Fra Bartolommeo et son atelier, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 1994-95, pp. 140-144, reproduced