Study for the Pietà

Giulio Cesare Procaccini

1604 · Charcoal, highlighted with white gouache, squared in charcoal, on blue paper · Drawings and Prints

Nancy Ward Neilson identified this drawing as a study for the 'Pietà' in the Milanese church of Santa Maria presso San Celso, which is Giulio Cesare Procaccini's earliest known oil painting and which the artist delivered in 1604. There are only minor differences between the Museum's composition study and the painting. A sheet of pen and ink figure studies by Giulio Cesare Procaccini in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan has been convincingly connected with the same 'Pietà' by Emma Spina Barelli (Disegni di maestri lombardi del primo Seicento, Milan 1959, no. 31, and reproduced in M. Valsecchi, I grandi disegni italiani del '600 lombardo all Ambrosiana, Milan 1975, p. 43, fig. 27).

Artist

Giulio Cesare Procaccini

Date

1604

Medium

Charcoal, highlighted with white gouache, squared in charcoal, on blue paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Harry G. Sperling Fund, 1982