Madonna of Loreto, the Virgin lifts a veil above the Child, who lies on a bed and pillow, Joseph stands behind with both hands on his staff

Madonna of Loreto, the Virgin lifts a veil above the Child, who lies on a bed and pillow, Joseph stands behind with both hands on his staff

Giorgio Ghisi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print is related to a painting by Raphael executed around 1511. In the sixteenth century, the painting was in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, but it is now in the Musée Condé at Chantilly. The text at the bottom of the print does not explicitly acknowledge Raphael’s painting as the source, but proclaims it is a devotional print. Ghisi slightly reduces the compression of the original composition by increasing the space on both the left and right sides. This is the second state of the plate; the first state carries only the monogram of Ghisi and no letters in the margin. It was one of a group of three engravings by Ghisi that were published by Antoine Lafreri in 1575 as devotional works. Ghisi may have produced these plates in Mantua, printed a few impressions, and then sold them to Lafreri in Rome.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Madonna of Loreto, the Virgin lifts a veil above the Child, who lies on a bed and pillow, Joseph stands behind with both hands on his staffMadonna of Loreto, the Virgin lifts a veil above the Child, who lies on a bed and pillow, Joseph stands behind with both hands on his staffMadonna of Loreto, the Virgin lifts a veil above the Child, who lies on a bed and pillow, Joseph stands behind with both hands on his staffMadonna of Loreto, the Virgin lifts a veil above the Child, who lies on a bed and pillow, Joseph stands behind with both hands on his staffMadonna of Loreto, the Virgin lifts a veil above the Child, who lies on a bed and pillow, Joseph stands behind with both hands on his staff

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.