Saint Christopher Bearing the Christ Child

Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio de Sacchis)

1484–1539 · Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, on blue paper, squared vertically and horizontally in red chalk, diagonally in charcoal · Drawings and Prints

This pictorial 'chiaroscuro' study is Pordenone's finished drawing for the Saint Christopher he painted on one of the two shutters of a cupboard for ecclesiastical silver in Saint Rocco, Venice, about 1527 (Cohen, 1980, fig- 44). The sheet is squared for its proportional transfer onto the larger canvas. An old copy of this drawing is in the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento (Master Drawings from Sacramento, Sacramento, California, 1971, no. 11, repr., as Pordenone), which once figured in the collection of Baron Vivant Denon and was reproduced in reverse in Denon's "Monuments", vol. 2, pl. 124. At the Musée Condé in Chantilly there is a red chalk study for the figures of Saint Martin and the beggar represented on the other shutter in Saint Rocco (Cohen 1980, figs. 41 and 42). Together with other Venetian drawings in the Museum's collection, the sheet comes from the prestigious collection of John B. Skippe (1742-1812).

Artist

Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio de Sacchis)

Date

1484–1539

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, on blue paper, squared vertically and horizontally in red chalk, diagonally in charcoal

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1960