- Museum number
- 1992,0516.108
- Description
-
St Luke painting the Virgin and Child; the saint turned to right but looking up to left, head of a bull to right, a palette and brushes on the ground, putti surrounding
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, heightened with white, on blue paper
- Production date
- 1596-1647
- Dimensions
-
Height: 251 millimetres
-
Width: 198 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Turner's association with the Piacenza Madonna was accepted by Schleier. The drawing is something of an outlier in Lanfranco's graphic oeuvre up to 1615.
Lit.: N. Turner, 'Italian Drawings in the BM, Roman Baroque Drawings', London, 1999, I, no. 146; E. Schleier, 'Giovanni Lanfranco: un pittore barocco tra Parma, Roma e Napoli', exh. cat., Parma, Naples and Rome, Milan, 2001, pp. 350-1, D.2.
Turner 1999
This is a study, with many differences, for the painting of the subject in the Collegio Notarile at Piacenza (Bernini, 1982, fig. 17) and is one of the artist's few compositional drawings that can be related to an early work.
The picture, which is signed and dated 1611, is among the first to reveal Lanfranco's mature style and was done when he had returned to Emilia, shortly after the death of Annibale Carracci. The drawing captures some of the exaggerated effects of light and dark seen in the painting.
Literature: Popham and Lloyd, 1986, no. 155; London, Birmingham and elsewhere, 1992-3, no.13.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1992/3 Nov-May, Holkham Tour
1995-6 Nov-Apr, BM, Recent Acquisitions (no cat.)
2001 Sept-Dec, Parma, Reggio di Colorno, 'Giovanni Lanfranco'
2012 May-July, BM, Imaginary studios (no catalogue)
- Acquisition date
- 1992
- Acquisition notes
- The drawing passed by descent through the Earls of Leicester to Viscount Coke. One of a group of 66 drawings from the collection sold at Christie's (2.vii.1992/21) purchased by Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox on behalf of the Getty Museum who agreed to sell it directly to the BM.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1992,0516.108