Ballad Singer at a Shrine of the Virgin
1720/25
Medium
Brush and brown gouache and brush and brown wash, with traces of brown chalk, heightened with white chalk, over black chalk, on blue laid paper (discolored to pale brownish-gray)
Dimensions
46.6 × 37 cm (18 3/8 × 14 5/8 in.)
Classification
ink or chalk wash
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
14797
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A Genoese artist who worked mostly in Milan, Alessandro Magnasco epitomizes the transition between 17th- and 18th-century art in northern Italy. Rarely did his highly individual style find such expression as in this drawing, in which reddish-brown chalk wash heightened with white approximates the agitated strokes of the heavily applied impasto in his oil paintings.
About the Artist
Alessandro Magnasco · 1667–1749
Comment on works: Religious