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Virgin and Child

Maker

(artist)
1609-1685

Title

Virgin and Child

Medium

black and white chalk on blue laid paper, squared for transfer in black chalk, on a historic mount

Dimensions

Height: 24 cm
Width: 16.9 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.2375

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Giovanni Battista Salvi was born at Sassoferrato in the Marches, from where he took his name. His work, which was consciously anachronistic in seventeenth-century Rome, looked back to the fifteenth-century manner of Perugino and Raphael. There are many layers of softly modelled drapery in this contemplative scene, from the unwrapped swaddling that cascades down from the infant Christ to the pleasingly bunched cloth of honour that hangs behind the Virgin, echoing her shape.

Notes

This drawing has nearly the same dimensions as a painting of the same subject by Sassoferrato that appeared at Sotheby's in 2012. The composition is known in four other versions: in the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart (on copper, 62.5 by 48 cm.); in the Civico Museo Francesco Borgogna, Vercelli (on oval canvas, 103 by 77 cm.); in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg; and another which was sold. Sassoferrato based his composition for The Madonna with the Infant Christ Child Holding a Goldfinch on a String on a work by Simone Cantarini known from an engraving.

Provenance

Robert Udny, London and Teddington (1722-1802), L.2248; Archibald George Blomefield Russell, London and Swanage (1879-1955), L.2770a; his sale, Sotheby's (London), 11 July 1928; purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b; Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Narrative Folds (Pop-up exhibition), The Courtauld Gallery, London, 01/06/2013-01/06/2013

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Mount (historic), Recto: lower left, graphite: an arrow pointing up towards a collector’s mark on the drawing; lower left edge, dark brown ink: “Sassoferrato. 1605, 1685”; lower right edge, graphite, erased: “Udney Collection”; lower right corner, graphite, circled: “50”; lower right corner, dark brown ink: “632”; lower right corner, red ink: “5”. Mount (historic), Verso: lower right, dark brown ink: “632 / u //”; right lower edge, graphite: “171.65”.

Collector's mark: Recto: lower left corner, stamped in black ink: unidentified collector (similar to those formerly associated with Nicholas Lanier, but not an exact match); lower right corner, stamped in black ink: Archibald George Blomefield Russell (L.2770a). Mount (historic), Recto: lower right, stamped in black ink: Robert Udny (L.2248); lower left corner, stamped in black ink: Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).

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