A NEWLY DISCOVERED DRAWING BY TADDEO ZUCCARO This magnificent study of God is almost certainly a fragment of a drawing by Taddeo Zuccaro for the famous fresco of God Creating Evein the Villa Farnese at Caprarola, argues Gregory Muenzen.

GOD CREATES EVE

AStudy of Godin a private collection in the USA was until recently thought to be by Innocenzo da Imola (1485-1548). Although evocative of the high renaissance of Michelangelo and Raphael, this drawing (Fig. 1) is in fact a mature work of another great Roman artist, Taddeo Zuccaro (1529-66). When Zuccaro died at the age of 37 he was engaged in the commission to decorate the Farnese family’s villa atCaprarola, outside Rome. The Study of Godis as a study for this large commission, one of the masterpieces of sixteenth-century decorative painting. Like Francesco Salviati, Zuccaro embodied an overwrought late mannerism early in his development, but towards the end of his short career he demonstrates a classicism that coincides with the counterreformation. This new austerity is evident in his drawings. The heroic scale of this drawing, the burnished folds of the drapery and atmospheric plasticity of the figure are typical of Zuccaro, one of the most graphically inventive artists of his day. It is not only a significant addition to his corpus of eclectic drawings, it is also among the last and finest. In 1560 Zuccaro was granted the most important commission of his career, the decoration of the enormous villa that Alessandro Farnese was building in Caprarola. Vasari states that the contract stipulated that Zuccaro was not responsible for painting all of the rooms himself, yet he

1 The Creation of Eve by Federico Zuccaro ( c . 1540-1609 ), c . 1566. Fresco, Chapel, Villa Farnese, Caprarola. Photo:giovannirinaldi.it

2 Study of God by Taddeo Zuccaro ( 1529-66 ), c. 1555-56 . Brush and white gouache over pen and brown ink on paper, 23.9 x 10.2 cm. Private collection, New York

Apollo 59