3 FILIPPINO LIPPI Italian, 1457/58­1504 Two Studies of a Nude Youth, and Other Studies Metalpoint, heightened with white bodycolor, on gray prepared paper 27.1 x 17.4 cm (10 11/16 x 6 in.) Cat. Ill, no. 25; 91.GG.33 verso Metalpoint, a forerunner of the modern graphite pencil, is an exacting medium, but one that allows for great delicacy of touch. It was in frequent use in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy and the Netherlands (see, for example, no. 11). The ground, usually composed of powdered bones mixed with a water­based binder, was tinted and brushed on evenly over the paper to provide a coarse surface to receive the line from the point. As in this example, highlights were applied with the brush in Chinese White. The responsiveness of the material made it convenient for drawing from life. The Florentine painter Filippino Lippi was trained by Sandro Botticelli, whose rhythmical use of line exerted a strong influence on him. In this drawing, the graceful poses of the figure and the decorative treatment of the drapery have the same expressiveness as some of the artist's late paintings, which are dramatic and even eccentric in their effects. The studies of the nude youth were probably made to prepare the figure of Saint Sebastian in Lippi's altarpiece of Saints Sebastian, John the Baptist, and Francis (Genoa, Palazzo Bianco), 1503, one of his last works. 10 ITALIAN SCHOOL