Three Studies of Angels for a Pendentive (recto); Studies for Christ Meeting His Mother on the Road to Calvary, Studies of an Angel in a Pendentive (verso)

1599/1604

Cristoforo Roncalli

(Italian, 1552–1626)

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Culture

Italy, late 16th-early 17th Century

Medium

red chalk; squared in red chalk (left half), framing lines in red chalk

Measurements

Sheet: 27.8 x 35.3 cm (10 15/16 x 13 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1989.45

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Location

Not on view

Description

In 1590, a generation after Michelangelo’s death, the dome he designed for Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome was finally completed. In 1597 Pope Clement VIII commissioned the mosaic decoration of the interior of the dome, choosing Cristoforo Roncalli in part because of his training in Florence, an origin he shared with Michelangelo. Roncalli made this preparatory drawing for the angels that would appear at each side of the four Evangelists in the trapezoidal spaces where the dome meets the supporting arches, called pendentives. Roncalli practiced rendering the foreshortened human form in three studies across the sheet, which are early stages of the design.