One of the first independent projects Perino del Vaga undertook after the death of his master Raphael in 1520 was the decoration in fresco of the Pucci chapel in the Roman Church of Trinità dei Monti for the powerful Florentine cardinal Lorenzo Pucci (1458-1531). In the triangular-shaped compartments of the High Gothic–style vault, a challenging and awkward pictorial field, particularly for multifigured narrative compositions, the artist executed scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, to whom the chapel was dedicated. A preparatory study for one of the frescoes, this confident drawing—characterized by a fluid handling of different media, and squared for enlargement in order to transfer the design to the vault—attests to Perino’s prodigious gifts as a draftsman, for which he was acclaimed from the very beginning of his career. Here, as in the other scenes in the Pucci Chapel, the Marian subject matter is paired with an Old Testament narrative, in this case, the Sacrifice of Isaac, which theologians interpreted as a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ.
The decoration in fresco of the Pucci chapel was carried out by Perino in 1523, but left unfinished in 1527 after the dramatic events of the Sack of Rome. The cycle was later completed by the brothers Taddeo (1562-66) and Federico Zuccari (from 1566). Together with a second preparatory sheet for the Pucci chapel now in the Albertina, Vienna (‘Joachim and Anne Meeting at the Golden Gate,’ inv. 24983, 23.4 x 25.6 cm) the drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is listed in the 1601 post-mortem inventory of the Roman collector Antonio Tronsarelli as follows: "A60. Quando la mad.[on]na sale al tempio pur de chiaro oscuro Pierino" (for this inventory and full bibliography see here ‘References’)
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Artwork Details
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Title:Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (below), Abraham about to Sacrifice Isaac (above)
Artist:Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi) (Italian, Florence 1501–1547 Rome)
Date:1520
Medium:Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, squared in black chalk, on brownish paper. The empty triangular corners are tinted in gray-green wash, the right diagonal border tinted in gray wash
Dimensions:8 7/8 x 10 1/16in. (22.6 x 25.5cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1963
Accession Number:63.75.1
Antonio Tronsarelli (Italian)(listed in Tronsarelli's 1601 inventory as"A60: Quando la mad.[on]na sale al tempio pur de chiaro oscuro Pierino"); (?) Prince Borghese, Rome(according to Lawrence-Woodburn Gallery catalogue); Sir Thomas Lawrence (British)(no mark); Samuel Woodburn (British); Woodburn and Lawrence sale, Christie's, London, June 4-8, 1860, lot 98; Professor J[acob]. Isaacs (British); Sotheby's, London, March 12, 1963, lot 20
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Italian Renaissance Drawings from New York Collections," November 9, 1965–January 9, 1966.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Old Master Drawings from American Collections," April 29, 1976–June 13, 1976.
Morgan Library & Museum, New York. "Drawings by Raphael and His Circle from British and North American Collections," January 1, 1987–December 31, 1988.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," February 6–April 16, 1995.
Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken, Germany. "Zeichnungen aus der Toskana: Das Zeitalter Michelangelos," September 29, 1997–November 23, 1997.
Palazzo Te, Mantua. "Perino del Vaga: tra Raffaello e Michelangelo," March 17, 2001–June 10, 2001.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Perino del Vaga in New York Collections," September 27, 2011–February 5, 2012.
Fifth Exhibition, a catalogue of one hundred drawings by J. Romano, F. Primaticcio, L. da Vinci, and Pierino del Vaga collected by Sir Thomas Lawrence. Exh. cat. Lawrence Gallery, London, 1835, p. 30, no. 30 (as "Purification of the Virgin -- and above, in small compartment, the sacrifice of Abraham...").
Christie, Manson and Woods Samuel Woodburn sale. [Sale catalogue]. London, June 4, 1860, no. 98 (as "The Purification of the Virgin...This and the last from the collection of Prince Borghese").
Bernice F. Davidson "Early drawings by Perino del Vaga -- I." Master Drawings. New York, Autumn 1963, p. 16, pl. 7a.
Jacob Bean 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1964, cat. no. 19, fig. no. 19, ill.
Jacob Bean, Felice Stampfle Drawings from New York Collections, Vol. I: The Italian Renaissance. Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1965, p. 56, no. 84, ill.
Bernice F. Davidson Mostra di disegni di Perino del Vaga e la sua cerchia Exh. cat. Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi. Florence, 1966, pp. 18-19, under no. 10.
Ebria Feinblatt Old Master Drawings from American Collections. Exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1976, cat. no. 108, fig. no. 108, p. 90., ill.
L.C.J. Frerichs "Een onbekende tekening van Vincenzo tamagni voor het Rihksprentenkabinet" Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. vol. 26, no. 3, 1978, fig. no. 5, p. 110, ill.
Jacob Bean "Review: Roman Drawings of the Sixteenth Century from the Musee de Louvre (exh. cat. by Catherine Monbeig Goguel and Francoise Viatte, Paris, 1979-1980) (publ. Art Institute of Chicago))." Master Drawings. vol. 18, no. 4, New York, Winter 1980, cat. no. 39, p. 96.
Jacob Bean, Lawrence Turčić 15th and 16th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982, cat. no. 166, fig. no. 166, pp. 172-73, ill.
Roseline Bacou Autour de Raphael. Exh. cat., Paris, Musee du Louvre. Paris, 1983, cat. no. no. 86, p. 78.
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat.: February 16 - April 17. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1983.
Elena Parma Armani Perin del Vaga: L'Anello mancante. Studi sul Manierismo. Genoa, 1986, p. 59, fig. 52.
John Gere Drawings by Raphael and his Circle, from British and North American Collections. Exh. cat. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 1987, cat. no. 70, ill.
Alexander Perrig, Ernst-Gerhard Güse Zeichnungen aus der Toskana: Das Zeitalter Michelangelos Exh. cat. Saarland, Museum Saarbrücken. Munich and New York, 1997, p. 186, no. 58 (entry by Beate Reifenscheid).
Matteo Lanfranconi "Antonio Tronsarelli: A Roman Collector of the Late Sixteenth Century." The Burlington Magazine. Vol. 140, No. 1145 (Aug., 1998), 1998, p. 544, fig. 42, no. A.60 (listed in Tronsarelli's 1601 inventory under "A60: Quando la mad.[on]na sale al tempio pur de chiaro oscuro Pierino"), ill.
Elena Parma Perino del Vaga: tra Raffaello e Michelangelo. Exh. cat., Mantua, Palazzo Te (March 18 - June 10, 2001). Milan, 2001, pp. 73, 168-69, no. 63 (text by Catherine Goguel, entry by Elena Parma).
Elena Parma Armani "Parmigianino e Perino. Ricerche di due maestri inquieti." Parmigianino e il manierismo europeo: Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi (Parma 13-15 giugno 2002). ed by Lucia Fornari Schianchi, Milan, 2002, pp. 313-16, fig. 8.
Éric Pagliano L'atelier de l'oeuvre. Dessins italiens du Musée Fabre. Catalogue des dessins exposés suivi du répertoire du fonds. Montpellier and Kortrijk, 2013, p. 266, note 1.
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