Two studies of a Standing Man with a Sword (Alexander the Great); verso: Studies of a Leg, an Arm, a Hand, and a Figure's Neck

This double-sided sheet is a preparatory drawing for a monumental canvas depicting Alexander the Great, one of a series of eight paintings of ancient and early Bavarian rulers executed in Candid’s studio between 1601 and 1605 for Maximilian I’s palace (Residenz) in Munich. The painting of Alexander, which survived the partial destruction of the Residenz during World War II and remains in Munich (Residenz mit Innenhöfen, Gemäldedepot), shows the Macedonian leader with the Gordion Knot. According to a Phrygian legend, an oracle had predicted that he who was able to untangle this impossible knot would conquer Asia. Alexander’s solution was to cut it with his sword.

One of three known drawings related to this painting (the other two, also on pink-prepared paper, are in Berlin and Stuttgart[1]), the present sheet reveals an early phase of Candid’s meticulous planning of the heroic figure. On the recto, at left, is a study of the entire figure, almost certainly drawn from a live model, in nearly the exact pose he will assume in the final painting, but with only a cursory indication of the legendary knot in the proper left hand. Strokes of lead white gouache accentuate the volumetric forms of the body and capture the gleaming metal of the sword. In the study at right, larger in scale and possibly drawn from a sculptural model, Candid concentrates his attention on the musculature of the torso and proper right thigh, sketched with black and red chalk and worked up in pen and ink. On the verso, he focused on individual parts of the body: the neck, the raised arm, the hand gripping the hilt of the sword, and the right leg, drawn twice with different possibilities for the footwear. The adjustments and refinements represented here (particularly the angle of the neck and raised arm) appear to have informed the Berlin drawing, in which the figure, still nude but wearing a helmet, appears next to studies of the elaborate armor he will wear in the final painting. Finally, in the fully developed modello in Stuttgart, Candid drew the figure in costume and with a detailed rendering of the severed knot in his hand.

(JSS, 8/23/2018)


[1] Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Inv. KdZ 11671; Graphische Sammlung, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Inv. C 23/53. See Brigitte Volk-Knüttel, Peter Candid (um 1548-1628): Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 2010), pp. 252-64, nos. Z45 and Z50.