Study for an Altar-piece with the Madonna and Saints
Italian Artist
(Second half of the 17th century)
- Red chalk with red chalk squaring
- 344 x 242 mm
The drawing was sold by Finarte in 1994 with an attribution to Gian Giacomo Barbelli (1590–1656), an artist responsible for altar-pieces and fresco cycles between the Bergamo and Brescia territories. To date, the attribution to Barbelli is no longer accettable. The sheet clearly functions as a preparatory study for an altar-piece. The subject belongs to the iconography associated with the Order of the Servants of Mary, founded in the 13th century in Central Italy (Florence, Siena, Borgo Sansepolcro): the seven holy founders are depicted in the act of receiving the religious habit from the Virgin, an episode that alludes to the spiritual birth of the order and its Marian consecration.
