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After Michelangelo BUONAROTTI
(1475-1564)
Pellegrino MUNARI, called Pellegrino DA MODENA ?
(1463 - Modena, 1523)
Naked young man seated
Sanguine, bistre wash, white gouache, on red prepared paper
Size : 230 x 160 mm
Mentioned for the first time in Modena in 1483 by the local poet G.M. Parente as "zoveno bello e degno in la pittura", Pellegrino is then documented as the author, in 1509, of a Madonna and Child with Saints Gimignano and Jerome, now preserved in the Pinacoteca of Ferrara. He then stayed in Rome from 1513, collaborating with Raphael in the Vatican Lodges (Judgment of Solomon, Leaving the Ark, Creation of the Animals, among others), but also worked independently: in 1518-1520 he frescoed the Serra Chapel in the church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli (Piazza Navona), and in the church of Trevignano he painted the Funeral of the Madonna and the Coronation of the Virgin. It is likely that he returned to Emilia after Raphael's death in 1520, since he painted two large altarpieces for Modena, the Pietà for the abbey church of San Pietro (derived from an engraving by Raimondi after Raphael) and the Nativity for San Paolo (now in the Galleria Estense), which testifies to his knowledge of the contemporary Bolognese milieu (Girolamo da Treviso, the Dossi brothers), and for which we know a preparatory study for the group of angels, quite comparable to our drawing, preserved in the Uffizi (Inv. 5625 Horne, cf. Disegni Emiliani Del Rinascimento, Modena 1989, note n°11). He died in a fight with the parents of a young man his son had killed. Another drawing in the Uffizi, San Giminiano (Inv.1442 F, cf. Disegni Emiliani Del Rinascimento, Modena 1989, notice no. 10) shows the same taste for sinuous lines, colored backgrounds, and the very generous use of white wash.
The artist could have copied here a detail of the Sistine vault, painted by Michelangelo from 1508 to 1512, the Ignudo to the left of Ezekiel, so it is a work from this Roman period.
