id: 136899 accession number: 1961.38.a share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1961.38.a updated: 2023-08-25 11:18:41.283000 Navicella (recto), c. 1410s. Parri Spinelli (Italian, 1387–c. 1453). Pen and brown ink (iron gall); sheet: 27.2 x 37.2 cm (10 11/16 x 14 5/8 in.); secondary support: 32.8 x 42.8 cm (12 15/16 x 16 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1961.38.a title: Navicella (recto) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1410s creation date earliest: 1410 creation date latest: 1419 current location: creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: Italy, Arezzo, 15th century technique: pen and brown ink (iron gall) department: Drawings collection: DR - Italian type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Parri Spinelli (Italian, 1387–c. 1453) - artist --- measurements: Sheet: 27.2 x 37.2 cm (10 11/16 x 14 5/8 in.); Secondary Support: 32.8 x 42.8 cm (12 15/16 x 16 7/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: beige(1) laid paper, tipped on to cream-yellow wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review (1961) opening date: 1961-11-01T05:00:00 Year in Review (1961). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 1-26, 1961). title: The International Style: The Arts in Europe around 1400 opening date: 1962-10-23T04:00:00 The International Style: The Arts in Europe around 1400. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD (organizer) (October 23-December 2, 1962). title: Old Master Drawings opening date: 1964-03-10T05:00:00 Old Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 10-31, 1964). title: Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands opening date: 1965-01-01T05:00:00 Drawings: France, Italy, Netherlands. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 1-March 24, 1965). title: Old Master Prints and Drawings opening date: 1966-07-29T04:00:00 Old Master Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 29, 1966-February 28, 1967). title: Drawings from the Museum Collection opening date: 1967-06-09T04:00:00 Drawings from the Museum Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 9, 1967-January 1, 1968). title: Italian Prints and Drawings opening date: 1968-01-30T05:00:00 Italian Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 30-February 25, 1968). title: Florence and the Arts: Five Centuries of Patronage opening date: 1971-07-13T04:00:00 Florence and the Arts: Five Centuries of Patronage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 13-September 19, 1971). title: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-08-27T00:00:00 Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). title: Michelangelo: Mind of the Master opening date: 2019-09-22T04:00:00 Michelangelo: Mind of the Master. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 22, 2019-January 5, 2020). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Italian Drawings. Burlington House. London, 1930. * Collection of Marquess of Northampton from Castle Ashby. Christie's, London 1959. --- PROVENANCE Giorgio Vasari, 1511-74, Florence, Italy (according to Richardson, Ottley, Kurz, Virch, Collobi) date: ?-1574? footnotes: citations: Johnathan Richardson, Sr., London (Lugt 2183, lower right, in black ink) date: ?-1747 footnotes: citations: His sale, 28 January 1747, no. 68 date: 1747 footnotes: citations: Sir Joshua Reynolds, London (Lugt 2364, lower right, in black ink) date: ?-1798 footnotes: citations: Probably his sale, 15 March 1798, no. 967. date: 1798 footnotes: citations: C. M. Metz, Rome and London date: ?-? footnotes: citations: W. Young Ottley, London date: ?-1814 footnotes: citations: His sale, 11 June 1814, no. 622 date: 1814 footnotes: citations: possibly Sir Thomas Lawrence (Lugt 2445, incomplete blind stamp, lower left) date: ?1814-?1830 footnotes: citations: Samuel Woodburn, London date: ?-1860 footnotes: citations: His sale, Christie, Manson, Wood, London, 12 June 1860, no. 1230 (as Giotto) date: 1860 footnotes: citations: Gase, Paris date: ?-? footnotes: citations: Marquess of Northampton, Castle Ashby date: ?-1959 footnotes: citations: His sale, Christie, Manson, Woods, London, 1 May 1959 date: 1959 footnotes: citations: With Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd., London date: 1961 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1961 footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Dating from the early 1400s, this drawing by Parri Spinelli is the oldest in the Cleveland Museum of Art's collection. digital description: Parri Spinelli was most important painter from Arezzo in the early 1300s. About 30 of his drawings are extant, more than for any other artist of the period, when drawing was just beginning to be common to artistic practice. Spinelli used a quill pen and ink on a large sheet of paper to copy the composition of a monumental mosaic by the Florentine artist Giotto that adorned the portico of Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome (since destroyed). In this scene from the Bible, Christ walks on water at right, while Saint Peter kneels before him in front of a ship filled with Christ’s disciples. Spinelli focused on the outlines of the figures, using a limited vocabulary of parallel and perpendicular lines to suggest shallow depth and shadow. Paper was rarely wasted. On the other side of the sheet (1961.38.b), Spinelli continued the copy, rendering two large ships and two rowing boats full of people.The drawing formed part of a model or pattern book that Spinelli would have kept in his studio. The book was broken up, probably as early as the 1500s, and two other drawings with the same subject—in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and in the Musée Bonnat in Bayonne—are known. wall description: Once attributed to the Italian painter Giotto (about 1267–1337), this drawing is the oldest sheet in the Cleveland museum's collection. We now know it to be a copy by Parri Spinelli after a mosaic Giotto designed for the portico of the church of Old St. Peter's in Rome. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Richardson, Jonathan, and Jonathan Richardson. An Account of Some of the Statues, Bas-Reliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy, &C. With Remarks. London: Printed for J. Knapton at the Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1722. page number: 293 (as Giotto) url: Richardson, Jonathan. Traite de la peinture et de la sculpture. À Amsterdam: Chez Herman Uytwerf, 1728. page number: III/2, 538 (as from Vasari's Libro by Giotto) url: Metz, C. M. Imitations of Ancient and Modern Drawings from the Restoration of the Arts in Italy to the Present Time: Together with a Chronological Account of the Artists and Structures of Their Work in English and French. London: The author, 1798. page number: 5, ill (in reverse as etching, as Giotto) url: Ottley, William Young. The Italian School of Design: Being a Series of Fac-Similes of Original Drawings, by the Most Eminent Painters and Sculptors of Italy; with Biographical Notices of the Artists, and Observations on Their Works. London: Taylor and Hessey, 1823. page number: repr. p. 9 (as Giotto) url: Venturi, Lionello, "La 'Navicella' di Giotto," L'Arte XXV (1922): pp. 49-69. page number: fig.4 (as circle of Lorenzo Monaco) url: Popham, A. E. Italian Drawings Exhibited at the Royal Academy, Burlington House. London: The Oxford University Press, and the Executive Committee of the exhibition, 1931. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 1 url: Kurz, Otto, "Giorgio Vasari's 'Libro de' Disegni," Old Master Drawings A Quarterly Magazine for Students and Collectors 45 (June, 1937): pp. 1-7. page number: p. 7 (as a copy of Giotto's mosaic) url: Berenson, Bernard. The Drawings of the Florentine Painters. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press, 1938. page number: 2: 254, no. 1837K (as Parri Spinelli) url: Popham, Arthur Ewart. Old Master Drawings: From the Collection of the Marquess of Northampton and Removed from Castle Ashby, Northampton. London: Christie, Manson & Woods, 1959. page number: no. 14 url: Virch, Claus, "A Page from Vasari's Book of Drawings," Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin XIX no. 7 (March 1961): 185-93. page number: pp. 189-93, fig 5 (as Ottley engraving) url: JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3257885. Walters Art Gallery. The International Style: The Arts in Europe Around 1400. Baltimore, MD: Walters Art Gallery, 1962. page number: no. 32 url: Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, Md.). The International Style: The Arts in Europe Around 1400; [Exhibition]: October 23-December 2, 1962. 1962. page number: pp. 34-35, no. 32, plate 35 (as Parri Spinelli?) url: Degenhart, Bernhard, and Annegrit Schmitt. Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen, 1300-1450. Berlin: Mann, 1968. page number: 2: 281, no. 183, 637; 3: plates 204a, b (as circle of Lorenzo Monaco) url: van Regteren Altena, E. Q., review of Degenhart, Bernhard, and Annegrit Schmitt (Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen, 1300-1450. Berlin: Mann, 1968) Master Drawings VIII (1970): 396-402 page number: p. 400 (as Parri Spinelli?) url: Pillsbury, Edmund P. Florence and the Arts; Five Centuries of Patronage. 1971. page number: Reproduced: no. 50 url: Levenson, Jay A., Konrad Oberhuber, and Jacquelyn L. Sheehan. Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art. 1973. page number: 160, fig. 7-1 verso (as Parri Spinelli) url: Ragghianti Collobi, Licia, and Giorgio Vasari. Il libro de'disegni del Vasari. A A. Firenze: Vallecchi, 1974. page number: 1: 28, 38, 39. 2: figs. 46, 47 (as Antonio Veneziano) url: Zucker, Mark J. “Parri Spinelli Drawings Reconsidered.” Master Drawings, vol. 19, no. 4, 1981, pp. 426–484. page number: mentions pp. 432, 440n28, 440n35, 441n37, 441n41, illus. pl 19 url: JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1553595. Bean, Jacob, Turčić, Lawrence, and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.). 15th and 16th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art / Jacob Bean with the Assistance of Lawrence Turčić. New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982. . page number: p. 170 url: https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15324coll10/id/71963 Köhren-Jansen, Helmtrud. Giottos Navicella: Bildtradition, Deutung, Rezeptionsgeschichte. Worms am Rhein: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1993. page number: p.p. 225-26; fig. 75 url: Elen, Albert J. Italian late-medieval and Renaissance drawing-books: from Giovannino de'Grassi to Palma Giovane : a codicological approach. Leiden: A.J. Elen, 1995. page number: repr. p. 511, no. 6, cat. no. 10; repr. p. 522, no. 24, cat. no. 47 url: Dunbar, Burton L., and Edward J. Olszewski. Drawings in Midwestern Collections: A Corpus. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996. page number: pp. 102-107, no. 20 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. page number: Mentioned: P. 8, 18-21, 283; Reproduced: P. 19, cat. no. 1 url: Goldner, George, review of Master Drawings from The Cleveland Museum of Art, Master Drawings vol 40, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 174-176. page number: 175. url: Bresciani, Aristide. Spinello di Luca detto Aretino. 2021, 247. page number: Mentioned and reproduced; p. 247, fig, 67. url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1961.38.a/1961.38.a_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1961.38.a/1961.38.a_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1961.38.a/1961.38.a_full.tif