Saint John the Evangelist

Saint John the Evangelist

Giovanni de' Vecchi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An eighteenth-century English inscription on the back of the old mount correctly identifies this drawing as a study for one of Giovanni de' Vecchi's most important commissions, the cartoons for two of the mosaic pendentives under dome in Saint Peter's. As recorded in 1642 by the biographer Giovanni Baglione ("Nella gran Basilica Vaticana il cartoni delli due Vangelisti di musaico Giovanni, e Luca sono forme magnifiche del suo ingegno") cartoons for the figures of Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Luke in colossal medallions were supplied by de' Vecchi, while those for the figures of Saint Matthew and Saint Mark were designed by Cesare Nebbia. De’ Vecchi and Nebbia prepared the cartoons between 1598 and 1599, and actual work on the mosaics began in late 1599 and continued through early 1601. Vibrantly drawn in pen and brown ink over black chalk, and extensively highlighted with white gouache, Giovanni de' Vecchi's study corresponds fairly closely to the mosaic in St. Peter’s, though in the latter the Evangelist looks down rather than gazing to upper right.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.