Ango after Michelangelo

Author(s): James David Draper

Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 139, No. 1131 (Jun., 1997), pp. 398-400
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/887577
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 Shorter Notices

Ango after Michelangelo

BYJAMES DAVID DRAPER

T H E name ofJean-Robert Ango will be familiar to attentive read-

ers of this Magazine: two of the most important writings on him
have appeared in its pages.' From them emerges the picture of a
struggling, indeed starving copyist in Rome in the wake of Hubert
Robert and Fragonard. Birth and death notices are lacking, but
Ango is documented in Rome between 1759 and 1773.
I recently had occasion to consult four albums of drawings by
Ango in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York.2 They were
apparently drawn for, or at least collected by, Jacques-Laure Le
Tonnelier de Breteuil (1725-85), known as the Bailli de Breteuil,
ambassador of the Order of the Knights of Malta to the Holy See
from 1758 to 1777 and a patron of both Hubert Robert and Ango.3
Much in the albums is familiar stuff - the stucco motifs of the Gesii
ceiling, for example, are dutifully recorded. Yet Ango, modest
draughtsman that he was, attracts some attention for having been
in the thick of the eighteenth-century revival of Michelangelo: one
of the Cooper-Hewitt albums is given over entirely to the motifs of
the Cappella Sistina. One image in the albums, however, fairly
leapt from the page (Fig.48):4 it is nothing less than a view of the
marble youth that has come to light in the building occupied by the
French Cultural Services in New York and that Kathleen Weil-
Garris Brandt, again in these pages, has in my view most persua-
sively ascribed to the very young Michelangelo (Fig.47).5 The
drawing records the sculpture, which is now a fragment, in more or
less its original state.
There is no point in rehearsing my r81e in the recuperation of the
long-lost marble in New York." Obviously I wish I had sensed
Michelangelo on first seeing the piece, which occurred in the
course of my work on Bertoldo di Giovanni, Michelangelo's men-
tor.7 As soon as I saw it well-lit in late 1995, it became clear that the
sculpture was unfinished as well as weathered and broken. Under
good light the unfinished passages take on a marvellous reverber-
ating quality that has never thereafter left me even momentarily in
doubt. I am delighted, accordingly, to be able to lend support to
Brandt's findings in several particulars.
Of course the drawing, taken by itself, cannot prove that the
sculpture is by Michelangelo or anyone else. There is no inscription
on the recto and, in laboratory attempts to pass light through47. the
Marble boy, attributed to Michelangelo. Marble, 95 cm. high (Services culturels
paper on which it is stuck down in the album, none is visible on de
the1'Ambassade de France, New York).
verso. There is thus no indication of what period Ango thought the
sculpture belonged to - my own guess is he probably thought it was The drawing offers precious positive evidence on several fronts,
ancient - or of where he saw it. A likely spot, however, would certain
be a flaws notwithstanding. First of all, it shows the figure's limbs
property of the Borghese family. The catalogue of the dealer intact.
Ste- Ango habitually broadens his figures, so that the boy is now
fano Bardini in 1902 stated that it had been 'part of the Museo beefier, especially in his middle and his thighs. The draughtsman is
Borghese in Rome'." also no great master of extremities, so that we cannot entirely make

'Acc. no. 1977-110-2 (13).

IM. ROLAND MICHEL: "'Un peintre frangais nomm6 Ango .. ."' THE BURLINGTON MAG-
AZINE CXXIII [1981], supplement, pp.ii-viii; P. ROSENBERG: 'La fin d'Ango', THE5K. WEIL-GARRIS BRANDT: 'A marble in Manhattan: the case for Michelangelo', THE
BURLINGTON MAGAZINE CXXIV, [1982], pp.236-37. BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CXXXVIII [1996], pp.644-59.
2New York, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Noah Butkin, 6Summarised in BRANDT, loc. cit. above, p.644.
1977-110-1-4. I thank Phyllis Massar for introducing me to these albums. They areDRAPER: Bertoldo di Giovanni, Sculptor of the Medici Household, Columbia, Missouri
7J.D.
discussed by ROLAND MICHEL, IOC. cit. at note 1 above, p.iii and note 14. [1992], pp.17 1-72. The discussion remains valid in an iconographic sense, I hope,
for the light it sheds on Apollo as the subject of Bertoldo's Bargello statuette.
'For his collecting activities, see s. YAVCHITZ-KOEHLER: 'Un dessin d'Hubert Robert:
"Le salon du bailli de Breteuil A Rome"', La Revue du Louvre et des Musies de France,
8Catalogue des Objets d'art, antiques, du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance, provenant de la Collec-
XXXVII [1987], pp.369-78, and A. BREJON DE LAVERGNEE: 'Les Solimrne du Bailli
tion Bardini de Florence, London [1902], p.89, no.547, pl.35. See BRANDT, loc. cit. at note
de Breteuil', Revue de l'Art, CXV [1997], pp.52-58. 5 above, p.646, note 8, and her article on p.400 below.

398

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 SHORTER NOTICES

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 SHORTER NOTICES

More on Michelangelo and the M

Marble*

BY KATHLEEN WEIL-GARRIS BRANDT

WHEN the October 1996 issue of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE went

to press, the provenance of the marble boy attributed there to
Michelangelo (Fig.47) could not be securely traced back earlier
than its appearance in London in 1902 at Christie's as the proper-
ty of Stefano Bardini.' The Florentine dealer asserted that the
sculpture came from the Borghese collections in Rome but, in view
of his well-known propensity for optimistic attributions and prove-
nances, a degree of scepticism seemed appropriate. The purpose of
this note is to redress what turns out to have been an injustice. Bar-
dini's claims concerning the Borghese origin of the Manhattan
marble prove to be sober truth, and its provenance can now be
traced back to the first half of the seventeenth century.
In his highly detailed and accurate guidebook to the Villa Borgh-
ese, published for the Jubilee Year of 1650, Jacomo Manilli, the
keeper of the Borghese guardaroba, describes in the private garden
what can only be our statue: a 'Cupido senz'ali, coll'arco d ipiedi, appog-
giato ad un vaso, e con le saette involte in unapelle difiera'.2 Clearly satisfied
by its attributes that the statue represented a Cupid, Manilli men-
tioned, as was his habit, only those elements which he found unusu-
al for the subject. Among them are exactly those features which are
so distinctive in the Manhattan marble - the absence of wings and
the arrows 'tied up in the skin of a wild beast'. The supporting vase,
49. Detail of Fig.47, showing the legs as seen froman equally unusual element for a Cupid, is no longer extant, but the
behind.
drawing by Jean-Robert Ango published by James Draper on
p.399 above (Fig.48) demonstrates that the statue had a vase until
way of support (hence the vase of the marble)."1 the late eighteenthThe pose
century.3 ofimportant,
Equally the Manilli must have
marble youth was in fact unstable, and assumed that the marble
the drawing was an antiquity,
gives us thesince he is consistently
advantage of seeing that the angle at which careful tohe hassculptures
identify been as remount-
'modemrne' when he knows this to be
ed on his Roman perch is not all that wrong. the case.
It is always possible that Bertoldo and MichelangeloManilli's description, werewhen read in conjunction with early maps
look-
ing together at an antique fragment and of 'restoring'
the villa,4 tells it
us exactly
in theirwhere the imag-Cupid stood and how it was
inations. The likelier circumstance incorporated to my thinking by Scipione Borghese'sis thatarchitects into the decoration
Michelangelo was basically emulating Bertoldo as much as he was
of the gardens. It was installed on the decorative facade of a bound-
the antique. Even though the figure, through ary wall inthe the villa grounds.5 On
evidence ofeither
theside of the palace, the
drawing, has become more Bertoldo-like thanterrain
extensive ever, weoutmust
was laid in three rule
recinti (Fig.50).6 The first was
a public garden
out Michael Hirst's attribution of it to our beloved petitleading up to the main
maitre.11 It fagade
is of the house on the
not merely that no marbles have ever been connected convincing-
ly with Bertoldo. It is a question rather of fundamentally different
styles, gifts and ambitions. Details of the faces of the bronze Apollo
and the rediscovered marble, as presented by Brandt, summarise
the differences in dramatic fashion."2 Both works are unfinished,
but in each the head is the part brought nearest to completion.
Bertoldo's face, with tiny features, peers atlike
*I should us wistfully.
to renew my thanks to the Michel-
individuals and institutions mentioned in
my October 1996 article, most particularly to Nicholas Penny andJames Draper,
angelo's is contrastingly broad, solid, generous. In fact, seeing the
and to express my gratitude toJoan Mertens of the Metropolitan Museum, Marilyn
marble up close, I am repeatedly reminded Symmes of the
of the structure
Cooper-Hewitt of the
Museum, Kristina Hermann Fiore of the Galleria
head of his angel in Bologna. Borghese, Paolo Moreno and Antonietta Viacava who are working on its catalogue,
We can only be grateful toJean-RobertMsgr. Ango forofpreserving
Charles Burns the
the Vatican Archives, the staff of the Palazzo Braschi, and
marble boy in the form of his drawing.Mrs Paul Geier for kindly
Perhaps he wastaking photographs;
not alone; I am also grateful for useful discus-
sions with Matthias Winner, Christoph Frommel and Phyllis Pray Bober; and owe
it may well be that others in the service of the Grand Tour have also
much to my assistants, Robert La France and Trinita Kennedy, and to the kindness
left records of the fascinating fragment. of Frances Goodwin at the Institute of Fine Arts.
IK. WEI-GARRIs
Metropolitan Museum ofArt, New York BRANDT: 'A marble in Manhattan: the case for Michelangelo', THE
BURLINGTON MAGAZINE, CXXXVIII [1996], pp.644-59.
2j. MANILLI: Villa Borghesefuori di Porta Pinciana, Rome [1650], p.146. For the Villa
Borghese collections, see now K. KALVERAM: Die Antikensammlung des Kardinals Scipione
Borghese, Worms [1995] (published 1996).
'"The resemblance was noted by A. PARRONCHI: Opere giovanili
3See, in this issue,di Michelangelo,
J. DRAPER: I, Flo-
'Ango after Michelangelo', p.398.
rence [1968], pp.143-48; Parronchi was the first toBorghese,
4 Villa identify the
exh. cat., work
Palazzo Braschi,as by
Rome [1967], pls. I-III, XVIII, XX, XXI,
Michelangelo, on the strength of Bardini's photograph; DRAPER,
and accompanying texts. op. cit. at note 6
above, p. 171, alas, then found the resemblances coincidental;
5KALVERAM, op. BRANDT, loc. p.267,
cit. at note 2 above, cit. cites
at note
the Amor in this site as a lost work
5 above, pp.651-52 and 658-59, now finds them, rightly,
(cat.no.254). a determining factor.
"M. HIRST: 'The New York "Michelangelo": a different view',
6P. DELLA The
PERGOLA: Art
Itinerari Newspaper,
dei Musei, VII,
Gallerie e Monumenti d'Italia: Villa Borghese, Rome
no.61 [1996], p.3. [1964], pp.41-48; Villa Borghese, exh. cat. cited at note 4 above, pp.42-45; KALVER-
'2BRANDT, loc. cit. at note 5 above, figs.15, 18, 24. AM, op. cit. at note 2 above, pp.51-55.

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