The Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, Attendant Angels, and a Group of Supplicants

The Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, Attendant Angels, and a Group of Supplicants

Federico Zuccaro (Zuccari)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This dynamic sketch of the Virgin and Child with Saints is most closely related to the altarpiece in the Farratino Chapel in the Cathedral of Amelia, dating around 1559-64, but which includes in the foreground Saints Peter and Bartholomew, instead of donors, as in the drawing. A similar composition as in this sketch is recorded on a double-sided drawing at the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. 12281; 25.4 x 17.3 cm) with the Virgin and Child and St. Joseph on one side and a truncated, roughly sketched version of the entire composition on the verso.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, Attendant Angels, and a Group of SupplicantsThe Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, Attendant Angels, and a Group of SupplicantsThe Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, Attendant Angels, and a Group of SupplicantsThe Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, Attendant Angels, and a Group of SupplicantsThe Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, Attendant Angels, and a Group of Supplicants

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.