Studies after Pietro da Cortona
Jacques-Louis David (French, 17481825)
Black chalk; all four corners cut away; 6 3/8 x 5 3/8 in. (16.3 x 13.6 cm)
Inscribed in black chalk at lower margin: Comp ; initialed in pen and brown ink at lower right by the artist's sons Jules and Eugène, J.D. and E.D.
Rogers Fund, 1963 (63.92.1)
Jacques-Louis David (French, 17481825)
Black chalk; all four corners cut away; 6 3/8 x 5 3/8 in. (16.3 x 13.6 cm)
Inscribed in black chalk at lower margin: Comp ; initialed in pen and brown ink at lower right by the artist's sons Jules and Eugène, J.D. and E.D.
Rogers Fund, 1963 (63.92.1)
As a student at the French Academy, David filled sketchbooks with drawings after antique as well as Baroque art, including this sketch of figures from Pietro da Cortona's fresco, The Assumption of the Virgin, in the apse of the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome. In this sketch, one of two that he made after this fresco, David has modified the placement of the two figures as they appear in Cortona's ceiling to conform to the format of his sheet.

















