Vision of the True Cross appearing to St. Helen

1795–1836

Not on view

Saint Helen, mother of Emperor Constantine, is seated on a low cushioned stool and looking toward a cross enveloped in light. This compositional study illustrates the discovery of relics related to Christ’s Crucifixion. Ottley is remembered as a scholar and a connoisseur, but he was also an accomplished artist, living in Italy from 1791 to 1799 and carefully recording fresco cycles by Giotto and other masters. He certainly knew Renaissance renditions of the Legend of the True Cross; the present drawing is not a copy but an imaginative rethinking of the subject. In style and treatment of anatomy it recalls drawings at the British Museum, where Ottley served as keeper of prints and drawings, and the dynamic pose is indebted to representations of the ancestors of Christ on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Artwork Details

Title: Vision of the True Cross appearing to St. Helen
Artist: William Young Ottley (British, Thatcham, Berkshire 1771–1836 London)
Date: 1795–1836
Medium: Graphite and black chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 9 1/4 x 14 3/4 in. (23.5 x 37.5 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Purchase, Brooke Russell Astor Bequest, 2013
Object Number: 2013.96
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

By William Young Ottley

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An Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving. Vols. I-II

William Young Ottley

John and Arthur Arch

1816

An Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, upon Copper and in Wood, with an Account of Engravers and their Works...Vol. I

Multiple artists/makers

1816

An Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving, upon Copper and in Wood, with an Account of Engravers and their Works...Vol. II

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1816

A Collection of One Hundred and Twenty-Nine Facsimiles of Scarce and Curious Prints by the Early Masters of the Italian, German and Flemish Schools; Illustrative of the History of Engraving from the Invention of the Art by Maso Finiquerra

William Young Ottley

Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman

1828

Anche a me, Madre mia! (Me too, mother!), William Young Ottley British, Soft-ground etching, touched with black and white chalk — Anche a me, Madre mia! (Me too, mother!)
William Young Ottley
1828

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