This pictorial 'chiaroscuro' study is Pordenone's finished drawing for the Saint Christopher he painted on one of the two shutters of a cupboard for ecclesiastical silver in Saint Rocco, Venice, about 1527 (Cohen, 1980, fig- 44). The sheet is squared for its proportional transfer onto the larger canvas. An old copy of this drawing is in the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento (Master Drawings from Sacramento, Sacramento, California, 1971, no. 11, repr., as Pordenone), which once figured in the collection of Baron Vivant Denon and was reproduced in reverse in Denon's "Monuments", vol. 2, pl. 124. At the Musée Condé in Chantilly there is a red chalk study for the figures of Saint Martin and the beggar represented on the other shutter in Saint Rocco (Cohen 1980, figs. 41 and 42). Together with other Venetian drawings in the Museum's collection, the sheet comes from the prestigious collection of John B. Skippe (1742-1812).
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Artwork Details
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Title:Saint Christopher Bearing the Christ Child
Artist:Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone (Giovanni Antonio de Sacchis) (Italian, Pordenone 1483?–1539 Ferrara)
Date:1484–1539
Medium:Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, on blue paper, squared vertically and horizontally in red chalk, diagonally in charcoal
Dimensions:14 1/4 × 9 3/4 in. (36.2 × 24.8 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1960
Accession Number:60.135
John B. Skippe (British); His daughter, Penelope Skippe Martin (British); Her husband James Martin (British); By descent to Edward Holland-Martin (British); By descent to Mrs. J. Raynor Wood (British); Skippe Sale, Christie's, London, November 20-21,1958, no.161; Vendor: Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Italian Renaissance Drawings from New York Collections," November 9, 1965–January 9, 1966.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," April 17–August 20, 1995.
Ex Chiesa di San Francesco, Pordenone. "Dal Pordenone a Palma il Giovane: devozione e pietà nel disegno veneziano del Cinquecento," October 10, 2000–December 10, 2000.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," January 27–April 28, 2003.
Hans Tietze, Erica Tietze-Conrat The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries. New York, 1944 (reprinted 1970, 1979), cat. no. 1334.
Frits Lugt Les marques de collections de dessins et d'estampes... Supplément. The Hague, 1956, nos. 1529a, 1529b.
Arthur Ewart Popham The Skippe Collection of Old Master Drawings Christie's London, November 20-21, 1958. 1958, p. 110, no. 161 (as Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone).
Jacob Bean "The Drawings Collection." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. 20, New York, 1962, p. 161, ill.
Stuart Preston "Review of recent accessions show at MMA." in Burlington Magazine. London, March 1962, fig. no. 39, p. 133, ill.
Jacob Bean 100 European Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: New York Graphic Society, 1964, cat. no. 13, 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. 42, no. 52, ill.
Terisio Pignatti "La grafica veneta del Cinquecento" Rinascimento Europeo e Veneziano. Ed. by Vittore Branca, 1967, p. 311.
Master Drawings from Sacramento. European Master Drawings from the Collection of Edwin Bryant Crocker (1818-1875) presented by his widow Margaret E. Crocker to the City of Sacramento in 1885, now part of the collections of the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery. Exh. cat., The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento. Sacramento, 1971, p. 4, under cat. no. 11.
Charles E. Cohen "Drawings by Pomponio Amalteo" in Master Drawings. vol. 2, no. 3, New York, 1973, fig. no. fig. 4, p. 248.
Charles E. Cohen I Disegni di Pomponio Amalteo. Italy, 1975, p. 25, fig. 11 (as Pordenone).
Charles E. Cohen The Drawings of Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone. Florence, 1980, pp.17,21,34,53, 101-102, fig. 43, fig. no. 43.
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. 192, fig. no. 192, pp. 196-97, ill.
Caterina Furlan Il Pordenone. 1988, pp. 262-263, no. D21.
Rodolfo Pallucchini Storia di Venezia. Temi: L'Arte. Vol. 2, Istituto Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome, 1995, p. 576.
Charles E. Cohen The Art of Giovanni Antonio da Pordenone: Between Dialect and Language. Cambridge, 1996, vol. 2, p. 623, pl. 351.
Caterina Furlan, Vittoria Romani Dal Pordenone a Palma il Giovane: devozione e pietà nel disegno veneziano del Cinquecento. Exh. cat., Chiesa di San Francesco, Pordenone. Milan, 2000, pp. 120-21, no. 19 (entry by Caterina Furlan).
William R. Rearick "Pordenone and Venetian Draftsmanship." Il Caffé. 1, 1, 2000, pp. 38-40.
William R. Rearick Il disegno veneziano del Cinquecento. Milan, 2001, pp. 82, 84, 91, 216, 256.
Linda Borean "Per il collezionismo grafico tra Venezia e Londra nel Settecento. Il caso di John Skippe." Studi di Memofonte. no. 12, 2014, pp. 75, 79, note 18 and fig. 2.
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
