Palma il Giovane

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Palma il Giovane
1544-1628
Virgin and Child in Glory, with Five Saints. Verso: Five Studies for a Kneeling Saint
1605
Pen and brown ink and wash, over red chalk, on laid paper; verso: pen and brown ink and red chalk.
15 1/4 x 8 5/16 inches (389 x 211 mm)
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
IV, 84a

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Notes: 

Watermark: none.
At no point in his career did Palma settle into a single mode of drawing, although the simple, quick study in pen, ink, and wash remained his favored technique. Even when drawing a fairly complete compositional modello like this one for his altarpiece in San Zaccaria, in later years Palma tended to elaborate a chalk underdrawing--in this case red chalk--with rather quickly applied layers of pen lines and wash. The drawing is the work of an artist entirely in control of his media, and the manner in which the wash and paper reserves convey the fall of light and shadow across the figures of the altarpiece evinces subtlety and sophistication. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice"

Provenance: 
Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.
Associated names: 

Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.

Bibliography: 

John Marciari, Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice, New York, 2018, no. 76, fig. 165, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, and Jacob Bean. Drawings from New York collections. I: The Italian Renaissance. New York : Metropolitan Museum of Art : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1965, p. 79-80, no. 145, repr.

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