Seated Apostles and Putti

One of Lanfranco's major commissions in Naples were the frescoes painted in 1637-38 on the rib-vault of the nave in the church of the Certosa di San Martino. In the circular compartments along the center of the vault, Lanfranco painted Christ appearing in a glory of angels, and in the triangular compartments above the windows groups of apostles, prophets, sibyls, and putti. Walter Vitzthum identified in this drawing a scheme for one of these triangular compartments. The broad-based triangular composition takes into consideration the whole area to be painted, while the faint red chalk indications of a narrower triangle suggest the area of the steeply rising vault that would be visible to the viewer standing directly below. Not only are Lanfranco's cloud-seated figures in this drawing, as in the fresco, strikingly Correggesque, but the handling of the red chalk reveals as well Lanfranco's early Emilian traning. Two drawings for a first overall scheme for the Certosa vault were identified by Hermann Voss in the Teylers Museum at Haarlem.