Many of Veronese’s drawings are in pen and ink and were made to assist the artist in developing his compositions. This example is related to a painting of Christ carrying the Cross (now in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden). As well as several figure groups, it records two ideas for the central scene of Christ and his tormentors within the rectangular format of the final painting. Figures and compositions almost merge into each other, conveying a sense of the excitement and speed with which the artist worked.

Veronese made this drawing in relation to an important commission of around 1571: a set of four enormous canvases for the palace of the Cuccina family on Venice’s Grand Canal. The pictures are all now in the Gemäldegalerie in Dresden. They represent the Adoration of the Magi, the Nativity, Christ carrying the Cross and that peculiarly Venetian subject of the presentation of the commissioner and his family to the Virgin. The Cuccina were not patricians but immensely wealthy merchants who were relatively recent immigrants to the city. They were naturalised members of the cittadino class, the middle level of Venice’s tripartite social hierarchy. With these pictures, which are packed with portraits of family members, they further proclaimed their Venetian identity. Like many of Veronese’s grand religious dramas, such as the celebrated Wedding at Cana (Paris, Louvre) the canvases he made for the Cuccina are both sacred and secular. Veronese drew prolifically: over one hundred and fifty sheets survive, which probably only represent a small fragment of his work as a draughtsman. A large number of his surviving drawings can be categorised as exploratory and imaginative studies of the possibilities afforded by a particular subject. This is one of his most exciting essays in this genre and, typically, is executed in pen and ink with wash. It contains Veronese’s only studies for the scene of Christ carrying the Cross for the Cuccina palace, and includes drawings of specific motifs, as well as for the general structure of this composition. This picture was always intended to be long and thin, like its counterpart, Veronese’s Presentation of the Cuccina Family to the Virgin, which was probably made for the opposite side of the same room. The middle part of the sheet is dominated by his various explorations of the central group of the Way to Calvary, with particular concentration on the figure of Christ with the cross, and the two men who bully him and urge him on. The horsemen who appear at the left and right edges of the Cuccina painting can just be discerned on the far sides of this group. Veronese experiments with the length and angle of Christ’s Cross, and also the shouting figure who holds the rope round his neck. Veronese’s first drawing for this group has this individual framing Christ, but shown from behind. In the second study, this man is rotated by 180 degrees, so that he looks at Christ, and also towards the putative viewer. The painted composition amalgamates both these ideas, and the executioner’s back is turned to the viewer, while his face gazes at Christ. In the bottom third of the drawing, and in particular at the right-hand corner, Veronese has tried out various positions for another important section of his composition: the swooning Virgin Mary, supported balletically by a male figure as she watches her son go to his death. In the picture, their positions have been reversed. The Virgin is seen from behind, while her companion - traditionally John the Evangelist, the disciple whom Jesus loved – stares out of the canvas. His sixteenth-century costume, strongly individualised features and direct gaze at the viewer suggest that he is probably a portrait of a member of the Cuccina family. Following these figure studies, Veronese made several sketches of the drapery of the Virgin’s falling form, which he went over in wash. Despite the multiple studies of the Virgin, she is not the most prominent female figure in the finished painting. This is Saint Veronica, who stands immediately before Christ, holding out her veil. Again, this moment is rehearsed several times by Veronese, at the top right and in even more notational form below, beside a further intensely cursory study of Christ and the Cross. The drawings on this sheet would have been made quickly, even breathlessly. Curiously, they are all on the recto: the verso is bare. Figures and compositions almost merge into each other. The rocky forms of the landscape, roughly hatched and blocked-in in the uppermost compositional sketch for Christ carrying the Cross among his tormentors, have been drawn over the smaller study of this grouping. Roughly drawn lines attempt to separate these two entwined compositions, and also impose some sense of the spatial dimensions of the rectangular structure which Veronese and his patrons had in mind for the painting of Christ carrying the Cross. The sheet still conveys a sense of the excitement with which it was made. One feels the artist’s ideas tumbling over each other in his desire to express them in some form and, also, how these ideas evolved as part of the process of putting pen to paper. (entry by Caroline Campbell in Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, exh. cat. The Courtauld Gallery, London and The Frick Collection, New York, 2012-13)

Sir Joshua Reynolds, London (1723-1792), L.2364 (lower right); Sir Thomas Lawrence, London (1769-1830), L.2445 (lower left); ceded by his executors to Samuel Woodburn (London), 1835; Woodburn estate sale, Christie’s (London), 4 - 8 June 1860. lot 1023; purchased there by Sir Thomas Phillips (1792-1872); by descent to his grandson, Thomas Fitzroy Fenwick (1856-1938); purchased from the Fenwick estate by Count Antoine Seilern, London (1901-1978), 1946; Princes Gate Bequest 1978

Veronese, 'The Cuccina Cycle' - The Restored Masterpiece, Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, 09/03/2018-03/06/2018

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, The Frick Collection, New York, 02/10/2012-27/01/2013

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/06/2012-09/09/2012 ...More

Aresin, Maria, 'Eine Kabinettausstellung zu Veroneses Cuccina-Zyklus anlässlich der Restaurierung' in 'Kunstchronik', March 2019 - pp. 131-38; 72, 3
p. 137
fig. 6 on p. 137

Veronese: Der Cuccina-Zyklus, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2018 Dresden 2018
no. 6 and p. 140 under no. 3, p. 148 under no. 5
ill. on p. 151
dated c. 1571

Cocke, Richard, Paolo Veronese: piety and display in an age of religious reform / Richard Cocke., London 2017
p. 153 ...More

Watermark: Watermarks: none visible in the drawing sheet. Backing sheet: centre: “J WHATMAN”.

Collector's mark: Recto: lower left corner, blindstamped: Sir Thomas Lawrence (L.2445); lower right corner, stamped in black: Sir Joshua Reynolds (L.2364).

Inscription: Verso (hidden under backing sheet, visible via transmitted light): along right upper edge, obscured by backing sheet: “[…] P.V. 3.2”; along left lower edge: two lines of text, possibly in Italian, but too obscured to read. Verso (backing sheet): lower right edge, graphite, modern hand: “P Veronese”.