Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence
1720/1724
Medium
pen and brown ink with brown wash and black chalk, heightened with white gouache on gray-blue laid paper
Dimensions
sheet: 34.6 × 49.2 cm (13 5/8 × 19 3/8 in.) mount: 42.5 × 29 cm (16 3/4 × 11 7/16 in.) framed: 56.52 × 66.68 cm (22 1/4 × 26 1/4 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Purchased as the Gift of Andrea Woodner
Accession Number
2019.83.1
Art Historical Context
In the National Gallery of Art's collection, Paolo Gerolamo Piola *Martyrdom of Lawrence* (ca. 1720–1724) captures a dramatic moment from early Christian hagiography. Saint Lawrence, a 3rd-century deacon Rome, was martyred on a gridiron for refusing to surrender Church treasures to Emperor Valerian. Piola a leading Genoese Baroque artist a prominent family of painters, renders the scene with intense emotion and movement, typical of the period's religious art meant to inspire devotion. Executed on gray-blue laid paper, this preparatory drawing employs pen and brown ink for precise lines, brown...