Study for a Ceiling Decoration: Coronation of the Virgin (recto); Female Head (verso)

Crowded scenes with the apotheosis of saints were a popular subject for ceiling decorations in Roman churches of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The outlines of an architectural ceiling surrounding this powerful large-scale composition drawing, or ‘modello,’ reveal that this design was intended for such a fresco painting. At top, the Virgin Mary is crowned by the Holy Trinity, consisting of God the Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit represented by a dove. A large number of agitated saints and angels in adoration witness the scene from different tiers of clouds.

Until now, the author of this drawing was unknown. The identification of the artist as Giacinto Brandi, a Roman pupil of Alessandro Algardi, was proposed in 2014 by Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò and Ursula Verena Fischer Pace (see bibliography). They tentatively connected the drawing in the Metropolitan Museum with Brandi’s fresco with the ‘Assumption of the Virgin’ in the vault of San Salvatore in Capite, Rome. The commission for the decoration of this vault was originally given to Niccolò Berrettoni (1637-1682), a pupil of Carlo Maratti, by the abbess Maria Eleonora Sampieri. It was Brandi, however, who eventually executed the commission after strong endorsement by Maratti himself, who preferred the latter to his own pupil especially for Brandi’s speed and ability as a fresco painter. A celebrated expert in the fresco technique, Brandi, in fact, completed the monumental decoration of the vault in less than a year, between January 1683 and December 1684 (see Lione Pascoli’s 1730 Life of Brandi and more recently Guendalina Serafinelli's 2015 monograph on Brandi, where, however, the attribution of the drawing is cautiously rejected). The Museum’s drawing is an important testimony of Brandi’s ability as a designer in such a large scale project: his bold draftsmanship integrates extraordinary pictorial effects with technical virtuosity, as can be seen by the atmospheric blending of the soft red chalk with the white gouache.