Seated apprentice
by FINIGUERRA, Maso, Pen, watercolour, white heightening, on paper primed pale-pink, 195 x 120 mm
In Florence, as early as the first half of the fifteenth century, the practice began of having one’s workshop colleagues pose for one - in the attitude of a thorn-remover, a horse-tamer from the Quirinal, a Donatello statue of David, a crucified Christ, of a kneeling saint, a by-stander shepherd, or of an apprentice in various sleeping, day-dreaming, reading, writing or drawing poses etc. and, depending on the context, either nude or clothed in timeless, classical, contemporary, secular or monastic, ceremonial or everyday costume.
The present drawing shows a seated painters’s apprentice at drawing.