The Coronation of the Virgin
Ercole Setti
1575
- Medium
- Pen and brown iron-gall ink and brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, over traces of graphite, on blue laid paper, squared in graphite for transfer, with extraneous traces of colored oil paints
- Dimensions
- 18.4 × 20.3 cm (7 1/4 × 8 in.)
- Genre
- prints and drawing
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago
Tags
brush and washdrawings (visual works)pen and ink drawingsprints and drawingpaper (fiber product)
About
This finished presentation drawing, executed in painterly washes on blue paper, has been recently identified as preparatory for an altarpiece in the Jesuit Church of the Annunziata in Modena. Squared in graphite, the elaborate and pietistic composition would have been transferred point for point to the painted support. It is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of Setti, an obscure and provincial artist, and reflects his familiarity with the Mannerist artistic vocabulary prevalent in the Counter-Reformation era.
