Italy, Venice / c. 1580
Various Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto)
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs Various Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto) as drawing (Italy, Venice · c. 1580).
The sheet of paper was a more vibrant, pure blue when the drawing was made; aging has rendered the color of the sheet closer to a green-gray.
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this drawing as pen and brown ink (iron gall) and brush and brown wash and credits Paolo Veronese (Italian, 1528–1588).
The museum's collection notes: In the last decades of his career, Paolo Veronese and his workshop produced a number of idyllic visions of the Holy Family in repose in the countryside during their flight into Egypt. This crowded sheet of loose, lively sketches was recently proposed to have inaugurated an intensive period of interest in this subject that began around 1570. The sheet shows two horizontal rows with eight versions of the seated Virgin holding the Christ Child, in some of the sketches accompanied by the infant John the Baptist or Joseph, and in one by a donkey. The sheet presents an unusual case of being preparatory not for paintings, but for finished chiaroscur
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The Cleveland Museum of ArtVarious Sketches of the Madonna and Child (recto)Original explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.