| 469 | 470 | 471 | 472 | 473 |
| 1 | 306 | 613 | 919 | 1225 |
|
arm--see Pl. XLIX, and for the expressive head of Judas which has
unfortunately somewhat suffered by subsequent restoration of
outlines,--see Pl. L. According to a tradition, as unfounded as it
is improbable, Leonardo made use of the head of Padre Bandelli, the
prior of the convent, as the prototype of his Judas; this however
has already been contradicted by Amoretti "Memorie storiche" cap.
XIV. The study of the head of a criminal on Pl. LI has, it seems to
me, a better claim to be regarded as one of the preparatory sketches
for the head of Judas. The Windsor collection contains two old
copies of the head of St. Simon, the figure to the extreme left of
Christ, both of about equal merit (they are marked as Nos. 21 and
36)--the second was reproduced on Pl. VIII of the Grosvenor
Gallery Publication in 1878. There is also at Windsor a drawing in
black chalk of folded hands (marked with the old No. 212; No. LXI
of the Grosvenor Gallery Publication) which I believe to be a copy
of the hands of St. John, by some unknown pupil. A reproduction of
the excellent drawings of heads of Apostles in the possession of H.
R. H. the Grand Duchess of Weimar would have been out of my province
in this work, and, with regard to them, I must confine myself to
pointing out that the difference in style does not allow of our
placing the Weimar drawings in the same category as those here
reproduced. The mode of grouping in the Weimar drawings is of itself
sufficient to indicate that they were not executed before the
picture was painted, but, on the contrary, afterwards, and it is, on
the face of it, incredible that so great a master should thus have
copied from his own work.
471
Page
Quick Jump
|