Saint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ Child

Saint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ Child

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The style of this drawing is comparable to that of other autograph sheets in red chalk from Guercino's late period, such as that for a painting of 1661, St. Theresa Receiving a Necklace from the Virgin, in the Presence of St. Joseph, her Patron (Mahon and Ekserdjian, 1986, cat. no. 36). This drawing features carefully finished drapery with few pentimenti or loose outlines. Cupid Spurning Riches, a study for a painting of 1654-55 (Royal Library, Windsor, inv. no. 2708) [Mahon and Turner, 1989, cat. no. 129) features an infant with closely similar physiognomy and some parallel hatching for conception of the figure in space. There exists a red chalk study of the same subject (Royal Library, Windsor, inv. no. 2572), but featuring a different composition that is unconnected with a known or documented project. It is considered by Mahon and Turner to be a School drawing from which a now lost etching by Francesco Bartolozzi was published in Rome in 1764.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ ChildSaint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ ChildSaint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ ChildSaint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ ChildSaint Joseph Seen with his Flowering Staff, which is Held by the Christ Child

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.