"The day twenty 7 of January.
"MICHAEL ANGELO, in Rome."(110)
[Image #20]
ATHLETE
SISTINE CHAPEL, ROME
(_By permission of the Fratelli Alinari, Florence_)
Buggiardini appears to have fared better than L'Indaco. He painted a
portrait of Michael Angelo with a towel tied round his head like a turban,
now in the Casa Buonarroti, at Florence. From the age of the sitter it
appears to belong to this period; the towel may have been used to protect
the hair and head of the artist from falling colour as he painted the roof
above him. It is an energetic head, with jet black hair and sallow
complexion, with many lines and wrinkles for so young a face, determined,
sad, and scornful in expression; a slight weakness and affectation may be
due to the personality of the painter. Buggiardini also executed a
painting from the cartoon of the master, the Madonna and Child with
Angels, number 809, of the National Gallery. The beauty and grandeur of
the lines of this design are far above the imagination of any one except
Michael Angelo, but the details of the execution of the hands and the feet
are inferior to any authentic work of his. The hatchings in the shadows,
especially of the draperies, are made up of short and feeble lines, and do
not express the form of the folds at all in the same way as we are
accustomed to see Michael Angelo express them, even in his earlier
drawings, the copies from Giotto and the primitives.
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