The Conversion of Saint Paul

Ludovico Carracci

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Acquired by the Museum in 2002, this dazzling drawing by Lodovico is a recent discovery and the only securely attributed study for his famed early altarpiece for the Bolognese church of San Francesco (now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna). In the drawing as in the painting, the use of diagonals that lead into the space, the cropping of forms, the agitated movement, and the visionary lighting all lend immediacy to the drama of the moment-and testify to the emergence of the Baroque style. A study for the effects of light in the painting, the drawing differs from the finished altarpiece in a number of details. The beams of heavenly light, for example, created here by wiping the aqueous white highlights with a sponge or cloth, were omitted from the painting. The drawing was first attributed to Ludovico Carracci by Françoise Viatte, although In her monograph of 2004 (Ludovico Carracci and the Art of Drawing), Babette Bohn has rejected Carracci's authorship, in favor of an attribution to Cavedone.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art