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Drawing 5 (third row, left): Frieze with palmettes from the Forum of Trajan
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Reference number
SM volume 115/156e
Purpose
Drawing 5 (third row, left): Frieze with palmettes from the Forum of Trajan
Aspect
Ornamental composition
Scale
Not known
Signed and dated
- c.1515
Datable to c.1515
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Notes
This decorative band has a palmette in an oval joined by foliate scrolls to sprigs that have flowering tendrils. It resembles two very similar ancient friezes, one from the Forum of Trajan, represented earlier in the codex (see Fol. 56/Ashby 95, drawing 1) and known from surviving fragments, and another now much eroded from the interior of the Temple of Saturn’s portico. It is more likely to be dependent on the former, given its delicacy and refinement and more especially in the way that the ends of the palmette’s individual blades are curved rather than square-ended as they are in the Temple of Saturn. The Codex Coner improves on an earlier drawing of the frieze in the Codex Escurialensis, in depicting the palmettes as being set into discrete ovals rather than ones that form part of a continuous scrolling motif that is an extension of the acanthus foliage. In this respect the Coner drawing has more in common with a drawing attributed to Francesco da Sangallo and two later prints.
Ruled black chalk lines below this drawing and it neighbour, together with some preliminary black chalk under-drawing, indicate that further designs of similar kind were originally intended there. The idea was presumably abandoned so as to leave sufficient space for the much larger drawing there now. The drawing’s style fits with a date of c.1515, as does the drawing’s style.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 59r (Egger 1905, p. 145); [Francesco da Sangallo, attr.] Florence, GDSU, 1693 Orn.r (Borsi 1985, p. 512); [Anon.] Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Larger Talman Album, fols. 62r and 195r
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 56/Ashby 95
Ruled black chalk lines below this drawing and it neighbour, together with some preliminary black chalk under-drawing, indicate that further designs of similar kind were originally intended there. The idea was presumably abandoned so as to leave sufficient space for the much larger drawing there now. The drawing’s style fits with a date of c.1515, as does the drawing’s style.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 59r (Egger 1905, p. 145); [Francesco da Sangallo, attr.] Florence, GDSU, 1693 Orn.r (Borsi 1985, p. 512); [Anon.] Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Larger Talman Album, fols. 62r and 195r
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 56/Ashby 95
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 73
Census, ID 48761
Census, ID 48761
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Codex Coner has been made possible through the generosity of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, Berlin.
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk