Madonna and Child with Saints Roch and Sebastian

Michele da Verona

early 16th century · Tip of the brush and brown ink, brown and some blue wash, heightened with white, on paper tinted brown. · Robert Lehman Collection

This sheet is composed of three separate fragments pieced together by the artist and reworked so as to eliminate the figure of the young John the Baptist, who formerly appeared below the Christ Child where Saint Sebastian now kneels (evident from the reference to John in the remains of a cartouche inscribed "Agnus Dei"). Despite the resulting spatial ambiguity among the figures, the drawing is carefully executed and highly finished and was probably made in preparation for a painting. Saints Roch and Sebastian, protectors against the plague, frequently appeared in Veronese art around 1510-11, when the city was struck by the Black Death. Perhaps the artist altered the sheet’s design to invoke these particular saints in response to this event and the desires of his patron.

Artist

Michele da Verona

Date

early 16th century

Medium

Tip of the brush and brown ink, brown and some blue wash, heightened with white, on paper tinted brown.

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975