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Virgin and Child

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  • Fabrizio Baudino asked

    Is it the drawing n. I 282?

  • Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen answered

    Dear Fabrizio, drawing I 282 (PK) is a different drawing than this drawing by Cima. Drawing I 282 (PK) is called 'Madonna with child' by Giovanni Bellini. I saw that the museum doesn't have this object registrated on the website, if you'd like an image of the drawing you could contact image@boijmans.nl. Hopefully this helps you! Greetings, Sarie.

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Specifications

Title Virgin and Child
Material and technique Black chalk, pen and brush and brown ink, heightened with white, squared in pen and brown ink, on (discoloured) blue paper
Object type
Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location This object is in storage
Dimensions Height 258 mm
Width 161 mm
Artists Draughtsman: Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano
Accession number I 335 recto (PK)
Credits Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date 1940
Creation date in circa 1490-1495
Watermark Cannot be determined due to insufficient visiblity, probably none (vH, 6P), viewed with IRP (transmittent light)
Inscriptions '[...]' (verso, above right, pen and brown ink, illegible)
Collector Collector / Franz Koenigs
Provenance ?Emile Maurice Marignane (1879-1956, L.1872), Paris/Caromb; Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1929; D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions Amsterdam 1934, no. 526 (recto); Paris 1952, no. 7 (recto); Rotterdam 1952, no. 89 (verso); Amsterdam 1953, no. T.17 (verso); Venice/Florence 1985, no. 14 (both sides); Rotterdam 2009 (coll 2 kw 3); Rotterdam (Rondom Fra B.) 2016
Internal exhibitions Tekeningen uit eigen bezit, 1400-1800 (1952)
De Collectie Twee - wissel III, Prenten & Tekeningen (2009)
Rondom Fra Bartolommeo (2016)
Research Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature Von Hadeln 1933, p. 2, no. 2; Amsterdam 1934, no. 526 (recto); Borenius 1934, p. 194; Venturi 1934, p. 495; Van Marle 1923-38, vol. 17 (1935), p. 460; Hannema 1942, ill.; Tietze/Tietze-Conrat 1944, no. 657, pl. 42.2 (recto) and no. 658, pl. 43.1 (verso); Paris 1952, no. 7 (recto); Haverkamp Begemann 1952, no. 89 (verso), ill.; Amsterdam 1953, no. T.17 (verso); Haverkamp Begemann 1957, no. 37, ill; Coletti 1959, p. 76, no. 32; Barbieri 1962, p. 115; Fenyö 1965, p. 42; Pignatti 1977, under no. 9; Menegazzi 1981, pp. 55-57, 148-150, ill. 219, 225; Humfrey 1983, pp. 65, 66, no. 197, pl. 20, 32; Aikema/Meijer 1985, no. 14, ill.; Ruggeri 1985, p. 235; Bromberg 1985, under no. 50
Material
Object
Technique
Squared > Squaring > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique
Squared > Squaring > Drawing technique > Technique > Material and technique
Place of manufacture Venice > Veneto region > Italy > Southern Europe > Europe
Geographical origin Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Gert Jan van der Sman

This drawing was done with the point of a brush in brownish-grey ink and white bodycolour on blue paper that is somewhat discoloured. The technique was used many times by Giovanni Battista Cima (called Cima da Conegliano) in, among others, the drawings The Redeemer (c.1485-90) in London and St Francis (c.1499) in Paris.[1] As Von Hadeln (1933) had already observed, the Rotterdam drawing was worked up in pen and ink in some places, particularly in the Christ Child’s hair, in his right lower arm and hand and the Virgin’s right arm and hand.

The seated Virgin and Child was a preliminary study for the central figure group of an untraced sacra conversazione (holy conversation). The artist was concerned both with the figures’ poses and with the volumes of the bodies and the folds of the garments. The frontal rendering of the infant Christ harks back to a design by Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430-1516) that was widely known among Venetian artists thanks to his numerous followers.[2] Peter Humfrey dates Cima’s drawing to around 1490-95, basing this on, among other things, the Virgin’s full face, which differs from the oval faces that characterize Cima’s early Madonna types.

The drawing on the verso can be associated with an anonymous engraving after a design by Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506).[3] As well as the praying Virgin, it also shows the naked infant Christ. As he lies on the folds at the front of her cloak, he basks in her adoration. The Christ Child has been omitted from Cima da Conegliano’s drawing. Peter Humfrey believes that the artist made a huge number of drawings, only a fraction of which have survived.[4]

The Rotterdam sheet, which was originally larger, provides an insight into various aspects of Cima’s working methods. A grid has been added to the image on the recto so that the drawing can be transferred to a different support. The verso reveals that prints by other artists were occasionally borrowed from in Cima’s workshop. The hypothesis put forward by Paola Bromberg that the drawing discussed here preceded the Mantegnaesque engraving and that Cima engraved the design in copper himself, is not persuasive. In the drawing Cima softened the Virgin’s sharp features and made the draperies less busy. His interpretation of the engraved example primarily served for a new invention around the theme of the adoration of the newborn Christ.

Footnotes

[1] British Museum, inv. 1895,0915.803; Musée du Louvre, inv. 5603; Humfrey 1983, pp. 174-76, nos. 193, 195.

[2] Bellini’s ‘invention’ was the basis of various ‘school works’, now in Bergamo, Treviso and Berlin. Cf. Humfrey 1983, p. 176 with reference to Heinemann 1962, I, 6, no. 25; II, 223.

[3] Hind 1958, V, pp. 21-22, VI, pl. 506.

[4] Humfrey 1983, p. 65.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
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Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano

Conegliano circa 1459 - Conegliano 1517/1518

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