Allegorical Figure of the City of Piacenza, for a Pendentive in the Chapel of Saint-Roch, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris (recto); Studies for the Same Figure (verso)

Allegorical Figure of the City of Piacenza, for a Pendentive in the Chapel of Saint-Roch, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris (recto); Studies for the Same Figure (verso)

Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The compositional shape of this preparatory drawing reflects the destination of the finished work: a pendentive—the triangular section of vaulting where a dome connects to supporting arches below—in a chapel devoted to Saint Roch in the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. As an allegory of Piacenza, she represents one of four Italian cities saved from the plague by the saint in the early fourteenth century. Hands clasped in prayer, she gazes up in veneration to the Apotheosis of Saint Roch depicted on the ceiling of the chapel above. The slight angle at which the drawing is squared suggests a minor adjustment required in the positioning of the figure when transferred to the next phase of preparation for the frescoes.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Allegorical Figure of the City of Piacenza, for a Pendentive in the Chapel of Saint-Roch, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris (recto); Studies for the Same Figure (verso)Allegorical Figure of the City of Piacenza, for a Pendentive in the Chapel of Saint-Roch, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris (recto); Studies for the Same Figure (verso)Allegorical Figure of the City of Piacenza, for a Pendentive in the Chapel of Saint-Roch, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris (recto); Studies for the Same Figure (verso)Allegorical Figure of the City of Piacenza, for a Pendentive in the Chapel of Saint-Roch, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris (recto); Studies for the Same Figure (verso)Allegorical Figure of the City of Piacenza, for a Pendentive in the Chapel of Saint-Roch, Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris (recto); Studies for the Same Figure (verso)

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.