Angel Holding a Banderole

Antonio Franchi (Il Lucchese)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing and a second one (1987.288) were associated by Marco Chiarini and Lawrence Turčić with frescoed pendentives by Antonio Franchi in the second chapel on the left in the church of San Frediano at Cestello, near Florence. Franchi's decorations in this chapel, which is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, are signed and dated 1706. The putto and angel in these drawings appear in the pendentives above the altar. The Metropolitan Museum possesses a drawing by Antonio Puglieschi (1660-1732) for the decoration of another chapel of San Frediano in Cestello (Exaltation of the Holy Cross, 1985.101).

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