Home Online catalogues Studi & Schizzi 2. Filippino Lippi Prato 1457 – 1504 Florence Three Studies of a Young Man Wearing a Cloak Filippino Lippi fixed these three young men in metalpoint, then applied white bodycolour to the first lines – although without following them precisely. The white highlights are not only there to indicate light, they also contribute to the construction of the drawing. The result is a kind of blurring that renders the image mobile and fluid, reinforcing the suspended poses of these figures who appear to be communicating with each other. Yet Lippi executed the sketches from a single model, observed from different angles and in different positions. This work belongs to a large group of similar studies of garzoni which may have been part of a model book. Following a practice inherited from the Middle Ages, these model books were both a repertoire of motifs for the painter and a medium for transmitting them within the workshop.
Filippino Lippi fixed these three young men in metalpoint, then applied white bodycolour to the first lines – although without following them precisely. The white highlights are not only there to indicate light, they also contribute to the construction of the drawing. The result is a kind of blurring that renders the image mobile and fluid, reinforcing the suspended poses of these figures who appear to be communicating with each other. Yet Lippi executed the sketches from a single model, observed from different angles and in different positions. This work belongs to a large group of similar studies of garzoni which may have been part of a model book. Following a practice inherited from the Middle Ages, these model books were both a repertoire of motifs for the painter and a medium for transmitting them within the workshop.