Studies of a Seated Youth in Armor

Vittore Carpaccio

ca. 1505 · Black chalk, point of brush and gray wash, highlighted with white gouache, on blue paper · Drawings and Prints

This celebrated drawing depicts a young model dressed in armor and positioned as though he were on horseback, his right arm raised and holding the shaft of a spear in his gloved hand. The figure is supplemented at upper right by a study of a helmet and, at lower left, by a detail of the armor. Both secondary studies are drawn in a larger scale, allowing Carpaccio to explore them in great detail. The pictorial effects of the drawing are achieved through the chromatic contrast of the blue paper; the reflections on the armor and the boy’s face are achieved through using white gouache and shadows in a few parallel lines. The artist may have intended to use this study for a painting, though the figure differs from the series of canvases dedicated to the life of the saint that he painted for the Scuola di San Giorgio in Venice.

Artist

Vittore Carpaccio

Date

ca. 1505

Medium

Black chalk, point of brush and gray wash, highlighted with white gouache, on blue paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1954