Study for the blessing hand
Artista Centro Italiano
(17th century)
- Red pencil
- 188 x 140 mm
- On the back: two galleons in pen and brown ink
The sheet depicts a foreshortened hand study, characterized by a solid rendering of volume and careful control of chiaroscuro. The modeling with soft, nuanced fields, combined with a simple yet confident touch in defining structural contours, harks back to the academic practice of central Italy between the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
The interest in the plastic construction of forms and the direct observation of nature suggests a Tuscan-Roman context, with possible affinities with the Florentine circle linked to the legacy of Federico Barocci and his followers, or with academic contexts close to the Carracci school.
The work therefore presents itself as a study of a workshop or of an artist active between late Mannerism and early 17th-century naturalism.
