The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence

The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence

Aurelio Luini

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This large, carefully squared composition by the son of the more famous Lombard painter Bernardino Luini served as a working modello for a fresco that was originally in the church of San Vincenzo alle Monache, Milan (now Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan). The commission is unrecorded, but stylistic comparison to other altarpieces by the artist suggests a date in the 1580s. The drawing retains a freshness of gesture and a lively rhythm of outline that seem lacking in the admittedly very damaged final fresco. Both the stark frontal foreshortening of the figure of Saint Lawrence and the diagonal thrust of the composition were inspired by Titian's famous canvas of the same subject, painted in 1548-57 (Church of the Gesuati, Venice), which became widely known through a number of painted replicas and Cornelis Cort's reproductive engraving. (Carmen C. Bambach)

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Martyrdom of Saint LawrenceThe Martyrdom of Saint LawrenceThe Martyrdom of Saint LawrenceThe Martyrdom of Saint LawrenceThe Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence

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.