Study of a Man with Various Sketches (recto); Study of a Man's Draped Leg (verso)

Polidoro da Caravaggio

Red chalk (recto); black chalk (verso)

Metropolitan Museum of Art

This double-sided drawing by Polidoro da Caravaggio (Polidoro Caldara, c. 1495/1500–c. 1543) presents on its recto a careful anatomical study of a naked man with his left leg extended and his arms raised above his drooping head, accompanied by additional sketches of an isolated foot and a disembodied arm rendered across the sheet. Executed in red chalk, the artist applied the medium energetically, using strong diagonal shading to describe the taut musculature of the chest, arms, and thighs, while the head is drawn more loosely—reflecting Polidoro's primary interest in the body's posture and form. Scholars associate this sheet with preparatory work for a martyrdom scene, exemplifying the artist's practice of isolating and rehearsing individual figures and limbs before incorporating them into larger compositions. Polidoro, one of the most inventive of Raphael's pupils and a leading figure of Italian Mannerism, was celebrated both for his lost monochrome facade paintings in Rome and for his surviving drawings, which convey inventive fantasy and emotional force.