Two écorchés, facing right. Drawing, attributed to Bartolomeo Passarotti, 15--.

This drawing and cat. no. 26560i are both by the same sixteenth-century Italian hand, perhaps from the circle of Bartolomeo Passarotti. Each figure is seen from a slightly different view as if drawn while turning in space, similar to the multiple views employed by Leonardo da Vinci in his anatomical drawing at Windsor (no. 19008v). The half-bent legs suggest that these figures were ultimately made after suspended corpses (Ameisenowa 1963, p. 41). Only the right half of the figure on the left of this sheet and that of the figure on the right of cat. no. 26560i has been drawn, a method of presentation frequently seen in early anatomical drawings. There are several drawings of varying quality related to the four figures depicted in this pair of sheets, all attributed to different sixteenth-century artists. They provide an illustration of how anatomical drawings in this period in Italy circulated and were copied as learning exercises. This group of drawings probably derive from a lost set of originals. The variety in the attributions which the drawings have been given indicate the difficulty in discerning an identifiable hand, which is not unexpected given the factor of copying. Of this set, the Wellcome drawings and the sheet at Windsor are the most accomplished. The figures in catalogue no. 26553i are both found in a drawing in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which has a traditional but incorrect attribution to Alessandro Allori (Mathias-Duval & Cuyer 1898, fig. 17; Rouen 1977, no. 33). In the Paris drawing we see more of the right elbow of the left figure which has been trimmed in the Wellcome sheet. In the figure on the right, more of the left arm and leg is indicated but only lightly. In the Accademia in Venice a drawing (no. 821) once attributed to Baccio Bandinelli but now kept with the anonymous drawings has more complete versions of these two figures, seen in reverse, in that all their legs have been depicted (Mathias-Duval & Cuyer, pp. 76ff., fig. 16). In addition, at the right of the sheet there is a floating left arm. In a similar manner, another version of the Wellcome sheet in the Ambrosiana in Milan (no. F.231 INF 13) has a separate study of the thigh of the left figure. The Milan drawing is in poor condition and is attributed to Battista Franco. The two figures of catalogue no. 26560i are repeated in a sheet in the Royal Library at Windsor which Popham and Wilde catalogued as "School of Bandinelli" (no. 0395; Popham & Wilde 1949, no. 84). Here the figures are less truncated. Evidence at least that versions of the two Wellcome sheets circulated as a pair is found in a drawing in the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf which combines figures from both. The Düsseldorf drawing is accepted as by Passarotti by Höper but it is too weak to be by his hand (Höper 1987, Z 49). There are two additions at the lower right of the Düsselfdorf sheet: the upper half of the skeleton in left profile and a study of the bones of the knee in right profile