Family Group Kneeling Before a Street Shrine
Medium
Red and black chalk. Framing lines in pen and brown ink
Dimensions
6 1/8 x 8 1/8in. (15.5 x 20.6cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1908
Accession Number
08.227.11
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the early 17th century, Sienese artists Francesco V and Ventura Salimbeni on this delicate drawing, *Family Group Kneeling Before Street Shrine* (ca. 1600). Executed in red and black chalk with framing lines in pen and brown ink the modest 6 1/8 x 8 1/8-inch sheet exemplifies the preparatory sketches favored by Italian draughtsmen of the late Mannerist period. Chalk's soft, blendable qualities allowed for nuanced modeling of figures, capturing subtle gestures and fabric folds with remarkable sensitivity—techniques honed for transfer to larger paintings or frescoes. The scene depicts a devo...