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Cadogan, Jean H., Domenico Ghirlandaio: Artist ami Artisan. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000. Pp. 425; 321 color and b/w illustrations.
Jean Cadogan's comprehensive study on Domenico Ghirlandaio, who has received less scholarly attention dian his illustrious apprentice, Michelangelo Buonarroti, is an important publication on the late-quattrocento Florentine painter. Conceived as a monograph, it includes, in addition to a text examining Gliirlandaio's life and work, a thorough catalogue retisonné (the third part of which pertains to Domenico's brother Davidc's oeuvre), an informative appendix of transcribed documents.
An unusual aspect of Cadogan's text is that it places much emphasis on connoisseurship and formal analysis. Chapter four is dedicated, for example, to the artist's drapery studies on linen (107-112), pendrawings (112-19), sinopia technique (119-25), figure drawings (133-39), modelli (preparatory sketches - 136-44), and cartoons (144-45). Another case in point are the comparisons between the styles of Ghirlandaio, Antonio Pollaiouolo, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Alessandro Baldovhietti (23-27; 30-33). Cadogan explains her method hi die preface where she "discuss[es] the objects [Ghirlandaio] produced from technical and stylistic perspectives . . . reconstructing] his working methods ushig die evidence of drawings and paintings" (ix). Given her expertise and experience...