File:Drawing, sketch-book (BM 1898,1123.3.13).jpg

Height: 248 millimetres

Width: 184 millimetres (each page)

Comment on left-hand page The figure on the left is a Venus of a type related to the Venus Genetrix now in Vienna (inv. 1192; see Bober 1957, fig. 37). Statue in the middle of a woman wrapped in a heavy, fringed mantle today in the Villa Doria-Pamphilj (S. Reinach, 'Répertoire de la statuaire grecque et romaine', Paris 1897-1930, I, 543). The one on the right is from a late Hellenistic variant of a 5th century BC statue of Venus Genetrix in Mantua (Bober-Rubinstein 1986, no. 12, p. 60; see www.census.de, ID 16662 ), but Aspertini "restores" it (see Faietti-Scaglietti, p. 290). Aspertini reproduced other antique models that were present in Mantua in the 1520s (see 1898,1123.3.11 and left-hand page of 1898,1123.3.36) and there is the possibility of a Mantuan trip and the encounter with the frescoes by Giulio Romano in Palazzo Te.

Comment on right-hand page Bober did not identify the source of the Bacchus or Apollo on the left, although she thought the drawing very close to a sculpture in Villa Doria Pamphilj in Rome (Reinach, cit., I, 285) and, like the middle one of the left-hand page, could originally have come from the della Valle collection; the statue of a woman in the middle wearing a Doric chiton has also not been identified with certainty (see Bober 1957, p. 58). The last group on the right, with a veiled figure and one sitting at her feet, is according to Bober a possible variation of the middle statue in the previous sheet. As noted by Brugnoli, the statues represented on this opening were mostly headless when seen by Aspertini, so the heads here are the artist's invention. The heads of both the second and fourth figure from the left are, according to Brugnoli, an indication of Aspertini's direct encounter with the works of Michelangelo, as one should derive from the head of Noah's young son in the fresco of the Drunkeness of Noah on the Sistine ceiling, and the other from the master's Bacchus. Both comparisons seem somewhat far fetched, and it is more likely that Aspertini based himself on roman prototypes, even though he might well have seen Michelangelo's works as well. Scaglietti (Faietti-Scaglietti, p. 190) finds a resonance between the types and facial expressions of this opening (and of 1898,1123.3.19 and the left-hand page of 1898,1123.3.40) and those present in the organ shutters of San Petronio, suggesting a similar dating for the latter and London I. For other drawings in this sketch-book after statues or reliefs in the della Valle Collection see also 1898,1123.3.3; 1898,1123.3.5; 1898,1123.3.7; 1898,1123.3.16; 1898,1123.3.36; 1898,1123.38; 1898,1123.3. 45; 1898,1123.3.47 and 1898,1123.3.48 [Bober 2v-3, 4v-5, 7, 15v-16, 37, 38v-39, 45v, 47v, 48v].For further observations see Bober 1957.

Lit.: P.P. Bober, 'Drawings after the Antique by Amico Aspertini. Sketchbooks in the British Museum, London', 1957, f. 12v-13, pp. 57-8; M.V. Brugnoli, 'Note sulla cultura figurative e cronologica nella maturità dell'Aspertini', in "Paragone", 401-403, 1983, pp. 83; M. Faietti-D. Scaglietti Kelescian, 'Amico Aspertini', Modena, 1995, pp. 177, 190 and under cat. dis. 85, p. 290.