A Bearded Prophet in Glory Attended by a Bishop, Two Other Male Saints, and Angels (Design for a Section of a Dome)

Rapidly drawn on a page taken from a sketchbook, this dynamic, highly utilitarian working drawing portrays a figural scene of religious glory, conceived in a perspective "as if seen from below" and within the outlines framing a tall, pointed, curving area between two ribs of a dome. The prominent, semi-nude bearded male saint at center is accompanied by three other male saints more schematically articulated on the right, seated amidst clouds, and supported by a number of quickly outlined flying angels. The sketch was produced by Giovanni Lanfranco for his famous, though ill-fated frescoes on the dome of the church of the Gesù Nuovo, Naples, painted in 1634-35, and highly praised by Lanfranco's early biographers, but which were burnt in 1639, and finally destroyed in the earthquake of 1688. The verso represents the very abbreviated sketch of an angel.

The design seen here is exactly comparable to that of another sheet in the identical technique (Uffizi 12710 F, Florence), but the present sheet offers a more advanced draft of the composition. The light beige paper is the same as is found in a number of Lanfranco drawings, and the partly cropped watermark is identical to that in Lanfranco's other known study for the Gesù Nuovo frescoes (Museo Nazionale di Capodimento inv. 290, Naples).


(Carmen C. Bambach, 2004)