The Raising of Lazarus

The Raising of Lazarus

Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This drawing was identified by Sir Denis Mahon as one of Guercino's preparatory studies for The Raising of Lazarus (Paris, Louvre inv. 1139), a painting dated ca. 1619 . Another composition study connected with a painting of this subject, with numerous differences in design with respect to the Museum's drawing and the finished painting, is in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. H 45: see Tuyll Van Serooskerken 1991, cat. no. 5). The outline of forms and the use of wash are extremely descriptive, as is typical of composition studies of this period. A pen and ink study for an individual figure connected with the Louvre painting is A Seated Woman (Royal Library, Windsor inv. 2484: see Mahon and Turner 1989, no. 10) The articulation of the composition is complete and relief-like as in comparable autograph pen and ink drawings from the same period, for example studies for the now lost painting of Jael and Sisera of c.1619-1620 (see Turner and Plazzotta 1991, nos. 23, 24): Jael and Sisera (Paris, Institute Neerlandais, inv. no. 1050) and Jael Showing Barak the Corpse of Sisera and Barak finds Jael with the Corpse of Sisera (both Collection Denis Mahon, on loan to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Raising of LazarusThe Raising of LazarusThe Raising of LazarusThe Raising of LazarusThe Raising of Lazarus

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.