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The Young David Playing the Harp

ca. 1548–50
Not on view
Delicately rendered in black chalk, this drawing constitutes a study for the figure of the Young David playing the harp frescoed by Michelangelo Anselmi in monochrome on the entrance arch of the western apse of the church of Santa Maria della Steccata in Parma. The placement of the figure, seated in a niche rounded at the top and bottom, is directly inspired by the same motif in Parmigianino's unfinished decoration in the vault of the eastern apse of the Steccata, a project documented in a celebrated double-sided sheet in the Metropolitan Museum collection (inv. 62.135). Anselmi was, in fact, one of the artists commissioned in 1548 to continue the decoration of the church after Parmigianino's disgrace and death in 1540. Though his formal dependence on Parmigianino's example is evident, Anselmi’s style as a draughtsman is here strikingly different in its soft pictorial ‘chiaroscuro’ shading. (FR)

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Young David Playing the Harp
  • Artist: Michelangelo Anselmi (Italian, Siena or Lucca (?) 1492–1556 Parma)
  • Date: ca. 1548–50
  • Medium: Black chalk, brush and gray wash, on blue paper; squared in pen and brown ink
  • Dimensions: 15-3/16 x 5-9/16 in. (38.6 x 14.1 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1961
  • Object Number: 61.123.2
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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Putti Playing with Hoops (Cartoon for a Fresco in Parma Cathedral), Michelangelo Anselmi Italian, Black chalk; outlines pricked for transfer
Putti Playing with Hoops (Cartoon for a Fresco in Parma Cathedral)
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ca. 1548
Lobster-Tail Burgonet, Steel, leather, gold, North Italian
Lobster-Tail Burgonet
North Italian
ca. 1610
Study of Eleven Heads, Jacques de Gheyn II Netherlandish, Pen and three shades of brown ink with black chalk on laid paper; framing lines in pen and brown ink and graphite
Study of Eleven Heads
Jacques de Gheyn II
late 16th–early 17th century
Sallet in the Shape of a Lion's Head, Steel, copper, gold, glass, pigment, textile, Italian
Sallet in the Shape of a Lion's Head
Italian
ca. 1475–80
The Connoisseur, Honoré Daumier French, Pen and ink, wash, watercolor, lithographic crayon, and gouache over black chalk on wove paper
The Connoisseur
Honoré Daumier
ca. 1860–65

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