“Michael Angelo Nursing his Dying Servant” by Frederic Lord Leighton

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Michael Angelo Nursing his Dying Servant

Frederic Lord Leighton, P. R. A. (1830-1896)

Inscribed and dated on original backing sheet '13th Feb 1857 Paris'

Watercolour

10 x 7 ½ inches

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Maas Gallery Commentary

Leighton painted his heroes in intimate association with one another: Cimabue leads Giotto by the hand in Cimabue’s Madonna (1853-5), and Donatello gently holds Brunelleschi's hand in The Death of Brunelleschi (1852). These large early paintings illustrate the narrative of Western Art as set out by Vasari, an unbroken chain of genius succeeded by genius. In this watercolour of 1857, however, Leighton chose a different, intimate subject from Vasari: ‘the death of Urbino, [Michelangelo’s] servant, or rather, as he may be called, and as he had been, his “companion” ... [I]n this, Urbino’s last illness, old as he was, [Michelangelo] nursed him and slept in his clothes at night to watch over him’ (Vasari, Lives, vol IX, 81).

This tender, expressive watercolour, constructed like a Deposition, appears to have been an early idea for the life size oil painting he painted in 1862, but it is the humanity of Michelangelo, rather than his genius, that interests Leighton. From letters, we know that Leighton was aiming at unity and simplicity of composition. From this watercolour, and from other sketches for the picture in Leighton House compared to the final oil version, it is evident that the sensitivity Leighton showed working on paper could be eclipsed by his high finish in oil colours.

Created 28 June 2022