Currently not on view
Dead Christ Surrounded by Angels with the Virgin and Saint Bernard,
ca. 1607
Federico Zuccaro, 1540–1609; born Sant'Angelo in Vado, Italy; died Ancona, Italy
x1947-150
The rather scratchy penwork and heavy application of white gouache in this drawing are hallmarks of Zuccaro’s late style. The composition most likely records a lost fresco executed by the artist in the collegiate church of Arona, on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy. The iconography of Christ surrounded by weeping angels who carry torches was inspired by a painting by Federico’s beloved brother Taddeo, who executed it for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese shortly before his death in 1566. The work was never delivered to its patron, as Federico was so attached to it that he kept it in his own collection for the duration of his life.
Information
Title
Dead Christ Surrounded by Angels with the Virgin and Saint Bernard
Dates
ca. 1607
Maker
Medium
Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, over black chalk, heightened with white gouache on blue laid paper
Dimensions
32.1 × 22.2 cm (12 5/8 × 8 3/4 in.)
frame: 54.6 × 42.1 × 2.9 cm (21 1/2 × 16 9/16 × 1 1/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr.
Object Number
x1947-150
Inscription
Inscribed verso, bottom center on mount, in
graphite: Gaudenzio Ferrari; left lower center on
mount: (illegible notation)
Reference Numbers
Gibbons 702
Culture
Type
Materials
- Exhibition of drawings by old masters from the private collection of Prof. Frank Jewett Mather: International Art Center of Roerich Museum: December 18th to 31st, 1930, (New York: Roerich Museum, 1930)., no. 29
- Felton Gibbons, Catalogue of Italian Drawings in The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977)., Vol. 1: pp. 91-92, no. 237 (illustrated in Vol. 2 under the same catalog number)
- E. James Mundy and Elizabeth Ourusoff de Fernandez-Gimenez, Renaissance into baroque: Italian master drawings by the Zuccari, 1550-1600, (Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Museum; Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989)., no. 101 (illus.)
- Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Laura M. Giles, Italian drawings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago: a catalogue of the collection, (Chicago, IL: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1997)., p. 267
- Laura Giles, Lia Markey, Claire Van Cleave, et. al., Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2014)., p. 83, cat. no. 34; p. 84 (illus.); p. 86 (verso illus.)
