Though perhaps less known than those he influenced, Fra Bartolomeo is a key figure in Florentine art at the turn of the sixteenth century. Acutely aware of the work of fellow artists across Italy, he both synthesized elements of their styles and constantly invented new forms and techniques. Among his innovations, a new type of sacra conversazione altarpiece, enlivened by the expression and gesture of those reacting to the central event, and the use of black chalk in drawings to capture the sfumato he had observed in Leonardo, had revolutionary and long-lasting effects. In this drawing of an Angel playing a Lute, Fra Bartolomeo employs expressive black chalk in a figure for his type of sacra conversazione, providing an instructive example of both.

Of humble origins, Baccio della Porta, as the artist was originally known, was first apprenticed to the painter Cosimo Rosselli in 1485 but seems to have learned more about technique from Piero di Cosimo, active in the same workshop. He was also in contact with other Florentine workshops, beginning a lifetime of observation and imitation of the best of other masters. Setting up shop with Mariotto Albertinelli, another Rosselli assistant, certainly before 1497, he was given the commission for a fresco of the Last Judgment for the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, left unfinished in 1500 when he took Dominican orders. He resumed painting in 1504 and captured major commissions, including an altarpiece with the Vision of Saint Bernard, an altarpiece for the Cathedral of Lucca, and works for the monastery of San Marco, in sporadic association with Albertinelli. The most significant of these commissions, an altarpiece for the Great Council Hall in the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence in 1510, he left unfinished. Trips to Venice and Rome added the works of artists like Giovanni Bellini and Raphael to his fertile innovations. He died in 1517.

The Crocker Angel with a Lute shows well the possibilities of Fra Bartolomeo's pioneering work in the medium of black chalk, from the sharp, linear strokes defining the filmy undergarment, to the bold upper contours of the beautifully-textured wings, to the carefully-modulated smoothness of the flesh. The angel's garment, of a type known to the artist from Botticelli and Filippino Lippi, is carefully highlighted in white chalk, a technique developed from the method of chiaroscuro drapery study he knew from Leonardo. Indecision as to the angle of heads seems to have plagued the artist occasionally, since drawings in the Boymans(1) and the Uffizi(2) share the superimposed solutions seen here.

Having entered the collection as the work of Fra Bartolomeo, the drawing was proposed by Alfred Neumeyer as a study for the music-making angel in the altarpiece for the Cathedral of Lucca, also known as the Madonna del Santuario, of 1509.(3) This proposal has great merit, since the distinctive angle of the legs and wings are extremely close. It is worth noting, however, that the present drawing is unlikely to represent Fra Bartolomeo's final resolution even though it is squared for transfer in both red and black chalk similarly to a drawing in Rotterdam(4) since in the painting the costume is different, the position of the head differs from both those in the drawing, the figure does not lean forward, and the age appears younger. Moreover, a nearly identical angel plays a lute at the base of the steps in the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine or Pala Pitti of 1512–13. The angle of the head and the position of the hands are again changed.

Thanks to the long and thorough work of Chris Fischer, Fra Bartolomeo is known to have kept drawings in his studio for later use, the same figures being used several years apart and habitually transferred drawing to one or more intermediary cartoons rather than directly to the prepared painting surface.(5) To this writer, the Crocker Angel playing a Lute most likely represents a preliminary figure drawing, perhaps even one embellished from the waxen lay figures used by the artist, that was kept in the studio to be used with changes for many such figures in sacre conversazioni. As such, and given the archaizing drapery, it may date from even before 1509, its first known use.

William Breazeale, in William Breazeale, with Cara Denison, Stacey Sell, and Freyda Spira, A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 2010