Artwork Page for Various Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto)

Details / Information for Various Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto)

Various Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto)

c. 1580

Paolo Veronese

(Italian, 1528–1588)
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Culture
Italy, Venice
Medium
pen and brown ink (iron gall) and brush and brown wash
Support
Blue laid paper (discolored to blue-green), laid down on blue laid paper
Measurements
Sheet: 20.5 x 23.4 cm (8 1/16 x 9 3/16 in.); Secondary Support: 22 x 28.2 cm (8 11/16 x 11 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Robert Hays Gries 1939.670.a
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
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Did You Know?

The sheet of paper was a more vibrant, pure blue when the drawing was made; aging has rendered the color of the sheet closer to a green-gray.

Description

In the last decades of his career, Paolo Veronese and his workshop produced a number of idyllic visions of the Holy Family in repose in the countryside during their flight into Egypt. This crowded sheet of loose, lively sketches was recently proposed to have inaugurated an intensive period of interest in this subject that began around 1570. The sheet shows two horizontal rows with eight versions of the seated Virgin holding the Christ Child, in some of the sketches accompanied by the infant John the Baptist or Joseph, and in one by a donkey. The sheet presents an unusual case of being preparatory not for paintings, but for finished chiaroscuro drawings, now in London, Berlin, and Cambridge, MA. While the individual sketches may appear at first glance a mass of tangled lines and confused forms, such pen and ink drawings demonstrate the Venetian artist's restless creative energy.
A horizontally oriented ink drawing with brown wash on light gray paper features various sketches. Several figure groups with light skin tones, representing Mary and the baby Christ, are scattered across the sheet. In the upper center, a small four-legged animal stands. Surrounding it, multiple studies depict Mary seated, cradling the infant against her chest or lap. A decorative border with small squares at the corners frames the rectangular page.

Various Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto)

c. 1580

Paolo Veronese

(Italian, 1528–1588)
Italy, Venice

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