The Virgin and Child with Saints

Girolamo da Treviso

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Born in the northern Italian city of Treviso, Girolamo worked as a painter and sculptor in Bologna, served as a military engineer for the English court of Henry VIII, and died in 1544 in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France — reportedly killed by cannon fire during an English attack on the city. The artist's work in Bologna during the 1520s, of which this drawing is an example, reveals a bold, highly expressive adaptation of the classical vocabulary of form seen in the late works of Raphael and his close contemporary, Amico Aspertini, the great Bolognese artist. The composition seen here is typical of altarpieces of the period: the four standing figures of the male saints (Paul, Peter, Francis?, and Petronius?) flank the enthroned Virgin and Child in the arrangement of a Sacra Conversazione (holy conversation), modeled sculpturally in strong light and shadow. (C.C.B.)

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art