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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1983.138.A
People
Unidentified Artist
Title
Pietà
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1523
Culture
Netherlandish
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/294927

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Brown ink on off-white antique laid paper, framing line in black ink
Dimensions
actual: 33.2 x 27.8 cm (13 1/16 x 11 in.) (irregular)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: Lower left, brown ink: 1523
  • watermark: unidentified fragment

    Beta will not be made. Watermark is too fragmentary.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Sotheby Parke Bernet & Co., London, 1 December 1983, lot 22], sold; to Harvard University Art Museums, 1983.

Published Text

Catalogue
Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: The Complete Collection Online
Authors
Multiple authors
Publisher
Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2017–)

Entry by Austeja Mackelaite, completed April 03, 2018:

Executed on a coarse sheet of tan paper, this drawing served as a backing for a fragile early 16th-century study of the Pietà, drawn in pen and ink by a different hand.1 The linear application of black chalk, as well as the pose and the physiognomy of the female head at right—with her tall forehead and rounded chin—is reminiscent of 17th-century Flemish draftsmanship, including head studies by Jacob Jordaens. This suggests that the drawing is likely to have originated in mid-17th-century Flanders.

Notes

1 Unidentified artist, Pietà, 1983.138.A.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Marian H. Phinney Fund
Accession Year
1983
Object Number
1983.138.A
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Exhibition History

  • Prints and Drawings from the Time of Holbein and Breugel, Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, 11/21/1985 - 01/12/1986

Subjects and Contexts

  • Dutch, Flemish, & Netherlandish Drawings

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu