DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61668#0178
CHAPTER VIII
PAINTINGS AND STUDIES FROM THE NUDE
1464-1470
No documentary record exists of other work executed
by Antonio during the years in which he was occupied
on the designs for the embroideries, yet it is unlikely
that these took up much of his time or were even the
principal work on which he was employed. These were
the years of his full maturity, and it may be presumed
that a great part of them was devoted to his special
interests and studies of the nude in action. A superb
example of this may by inference be placed about this
time—the frescoes discovered in 1897 in the Villa della
Gallina in the grounds of the Torre del Gallo, Arcetri,
near Florence.* The frescoes decorate one wall of a
room on the ground floor of the Villa, and represent a
Bacchic Dance of nude figures, two-thirds the size of
life. At the date of their discovery they were supposed
to be by Botticelli, and it was Mme. Mary Logan who
first attributed them to Antonio.f
* Formerly in the possession of Count Galletti, now of Signor
Bardini,
t Mme. Mary Logan,“Decouverte d’une Fresque de Pollaiuolo,"
“ Chronique des Arts, 1897,” p. 343.
PAINTINGS AND STUDIES FROM THE NUDE
1464-1470
No documentary record exists of other work executed
by Antonio during the years in which he was occupied
on the designs for the embroideries, yet it is unlikely
that these took up much of his time or were even the
principal work on which he was employed. These were
the years of his full maturity, and it may be presumed
that a great part of them was devoted to his special
interests and studies of the nude in action. A superb
example of this may by inference be placed about this
time—the frescoes discovered in 1897 in the Villa della
Gallina in the grounds of the Torre del Gallo, Arcetri,
near Florence.* The frescoes decorate one wall of a
room on the ground floor of the Villa, and represent a
Bacchic Dance of nude figures, two-thirds the size of
life. At the date of their discovery they were supposed
to be by Botticelli, and it was Mme. Mary Logan who
first attributed them to Antonio.f
* Formerly in the possession of Count Galletti, now of Signor
Bardini,
t Mme. Mary Logan,“Decouverte d’une Fresque de Pollaiuolo,"
“ Chronique des Arts, 1897,” p. 343.