Youth with Right Arm Raised in a Shoulder-Length Portrayal (preparatory study for St. Sebastian)

Youth with Right Arm Raised in a Shoulder-Length Portrayal (preparatory study for St. Sebastian)

Timoteo Viti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

First attributed to Timoteo Viti by Philip Pouncey in 1966, this drawing constitutes a preparatory study for the figure of St. Sebastian, seen at right on the altapiece with The Annunciation with Saints John the Baptist and Sebastian painted by Timoteo Viti around 1513-1515 for the Bonaventura chapel in the church of San Bernardino in Urbino, and now in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan (Reg. Cron. 507). A further large-scale model for the whole composition is in the Corsini collection at the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome. (Furio Rinaldi, 2014)

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Youth with Right Arm Raised in a Shoulder-Length Portrayal (preparatory study for St. Sebastian)Youth with Right Arm Raised in a Shoulder-Length Portrayal (preparatory study for St. Sebastian)Youth with Right Arm Raised in a Shoulder-Length Portrayal (preparatory study for St. Sebastian)Youth with Right Arm Raised in a Shoulder-Length Portrayal (preparatory study for St. Sebastian)Youth with Right Arm Raised in a Shoulder-Length Portrayal (preparatory study for St. Sebastian)

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.