The Lord Creating the Sun and Moon

This drawing is preparatory for the central fresco in the chapel vault of the Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola, the retreat of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Federico Zuccaro began work on the decoration of the chapel there in September 1566, and the drawing dates to that time or shortly afterward. Below the vault, six other biblical narrative scenes appear in circular frames and the chapel walls show images of the apostles and their martyrdoms, as well as other biblical scenes designed by the artist.

For this central, crowning scene, Zuccaro drew on the inspiration of Michelangelo's fresco God Creating the Sun and the Moon from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Zuccaro, however, changed the direction of God's prominent gesture and gave him a more placid countenance. He also chose to diverge from the narrative that Michelangelo depicted in his fresco (which shows parts of the third and fourth days of creation) and depicts the fourth, fifth, and sixth days by including a landscape scene with grazing animals, birds, and fish. He also modified the composition's overall shape to a circle rather than a slightly elongated rectangle, thereby cutting off much of the sun and the snake and some of the fish and shells at the bottom.

The drawing was a gift to the AMAM from Robert Lehman (1891-1969), the investment banker and head of Lehman Brothers, who was an important art collector. Lehman gave forty-nine Italian, Flemish and French drawings, paintings, and manuscript leaves, as well as Asian artworks, to the museum in the 1940s. It had previously been in the collection of the Earls of Pembroke & Montgomery at Wilton House in Salisbury, from which it was sold in 1917.