The Virgin seated on a cloud
1580–84
Medium
Etching with some engraving
Dimensions
sheet: 6 x 4 7/16 in. (15.2 x 11.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917
Accession Number
17.50.18-147
Tags
Art Historical Context
Federico Barocci's *The Virgin Seated on a Cloud (1580–84) is a luminous etching with touches of engraving, measuring just 6 x 4 7/16 inches (15.2 x 11.3 cm). This intimate print, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department, captures the artist's signature grace and tenderness. Barocci, a Mannerist master from Urbino, Italy, blended Raphael's clarity with Correggio's, creating devotional images that radiated warmth during the late Renaissance. The composition depicts the Madonna and Child, the Virgin enthroned on a billowing cloud—a classic motif symbolizing heavenl...
About the Artist
Federico Barocci · 1535–1612
Federico Barocci (c. 1535–1612) was an Italian painter from Urbino whose luminous, emotionally tender religious paintings made him one of the most original and influential artists of the late sixteenth century, bridging Mannerism and the early Baroque. Born in Urbino, the city of Raphael, he studied under Battista Franco and traveled to Rome, where he absorbed the lessons of Raphael, Correggio, an...