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Hear an audio guide excerpt from a conversation between Philippe de Montebello, Director Emeritus, and George R. Goldner, Department of Drawings and Prints (July 2008).
Lucas van Leyden (Netherlandish, ca. 1494–1533)
Pen and brown ink, traces of squaring in black chalk
8 5/16 x 6 1/2 in. (21.1 x 16.5 cm)
Promised Gift of Leon D. and Debra R. Black, and Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift and 2007 Benefit Fund, 2008 (2008.253)
Lucas van Leyden, who may be considered the first major Dutch artist, built his international fame almost exclusively upon his work as a printmaker. Although his drawings are very rare—not even thirty are accepted today—almost all of them count among the highlights of sixteenth-century Netherlandish art. A recent and unexpected addition to Lucas's small drawn oeuvre, this drawing complements one of comparable size and technique in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, which depicts the Virgin looking up in surprise at hearing the Archangel's message. It can be assumed they were made as designs for stained-glass windows. In them, Lucas married the monumentality of figures he admired in contemporary Italian art with a drawing style that is thoroughly Northern— a rich and subtle pattern of lines, hatchings and crosshatchings, which lends great plasticity to the figures.
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Index Terms
Artist
Material and Technique
Object
Subject Matter/Theme
- Figure, Biblical, New Testament
- Figure, Biblical, New Testament, Annunciation
- Religious Art, Christianity
