Seated Apostles and Putti

Giovanni Lanfranco

1637–38 · Red chalk · Drawings and Prints

One of Lanfranco's major commissions in Naples were the frescoes painted in 1637-38 on the rib-vault of the nave in the church of the Certosa di San Martino. In the circular compartments along the center of the vault, Lanfranco painted Christ appearing in a glory of angels, and in the triangular compartments above the windows groups of apostles, prophets, sibyls, and putti. Walter Vitzthum identified in this drawing a scheme for one of these triangular compartments. The broad-based triangular composition takes into consideration the whole area to be painted, while the faint red chalk indications of a narrower triangle suggest the area of the steeply rising vault that would be visible to the viewer standing directly below. Not only are Lanfranco's cloud-seated figures in this drawing, as in the fresco, strikingly Correggesque, but the handling of the red chalk reveals as well Lanfranco's early Emilian traning. Two drawings for a first overall scheme for the Certosa vault were identified by Hermann Voss in the Teylers Museum at Haarlem.

Artist

Giovanni Lanfranco

Date

1637–38

Medium

Red chalk

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1965