ZUCCARO, Federico
(b. ca. 1542, Sant'Angelo in Vado, d. 1609, Ancona)

Studies of a Greyhound

1563-64
Red and black chalk on paper, 137 x 207 mm
Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

With its noble form and slim build the greyhound - a magnificent example of which we see in this drawing - was very popular on the estates of kings and noblemen. It was precisely to these prestigious circles that Federico Zuccaro's patrons belonged. During his many journeys he always kept a sketchbook, in which he reproduced everything that caught his eye: events, landscapes, people, lions, camels, horses and the dogs that he much admired, but equally works of Italian and northern artists. Although his oeuvre evidences a considerable diversity of style, these drawings, almost all of them executed in a combination of red and black chalk, are characterised by a high degree of realism.

Early examples of these are his sketches based on miniatures from the Book of Hours of Cardinal Grimani, for whom he worked in Venice in 1563-64. This superb Flemish manuscript made a great impression on the artist because, when analysing the psychology and movements of a greyhound in the drawing discussed here, he reproduces the animal in the same attitude as the greyhound in the miniature Departure for the Hunt (f°8v°) in the Grimani breviary. Where Zuccaro departs from his example is the striving for more grace: the dog's body is less thickset and its neck longer. The drawing style is both powerful with its alert contour lines, and sensitive and delicate, with broad shaded areas and stubbed black chalk producing a pictorial modelling that perfectly suggests the animals downy fleece.

Later such drawings were to help him receive very diverse commissions, from frescos in palazzi and chapels to altarpieces and cupola decorations, as in the Florence Duomo. In 1565, for example, he used the group of figures from Departure for the Hunt and the elegant greyhound from the sketch from life discussed here for a theatre décor as part of the entertainment for the marriage of Francesco de' Medici and Joan of Austria. Many pages from his sketchbook, including the Brussels drawing and a related dog study in Berlin, came in the 17th century into the possession of the famous Paris collector Everhard Jabach, contributing thereby to the spread of Zuccaro's fame and his unequalled "à deux crayons" drawing technique.