The Risen Christ Adored by Saints and Angels

1566–68

The Risen Christ Adored by Saints and Angels, 1566–68. Giorgio Vasari (Italian, 1511–1574). Black chalk, pen and brown ink, and extensive white heightening (wash and point of brush), with incising on paper prepared with a brown wash.; sheet: 41.9 x 26.5 cm (16 1/2 x 10 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 1991.43 Florentine artist and author Giorgio Vasari venerated Michelangelo as the premier example of artistic genius and emulated the master in much of his work. He made this modello (a finished drawing for presentation to a patron) in preparation for a church altarpiece in Florence. It shows a finely muscled Christ appearing within a host of angels above a group of saints. Vasari’s Christ imitates the pose and body type of Michelangelo’s Christ in the Last Judgment fresco; he altered the pose, while suggesting his knowledge of the earlier composition. This highly finished presentation drawing, called a modello, was made by the artist to show to his patron the final plans for a painted altarpiece.