Four Flying Angels (recto); Two Flying Figures (verso)

Art Historical Context

This small, double-sided drawing by Francescogrini presents four flying angels on the recto and two additional airborne figures on the verso. Created between 1624 and1663, the sheet captures a sense of weightless motion through economical yet lively lines, reflecting the period’s fascination with religious and celestial subjects. Allegrini employed pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, a versatile technique that allowed artists to combine crisp contours with soft tonal modeling. At only a few inches wide, the drawing was almost certainly a rapid study, typical of how 17th-century Italian draftsmen explored poses and groupings before transferring ideas to paintings or frescoes. Gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1880, the work offers an intimate window into an artist’s working process. Its modest scale and dual-sided sketches invite close looking, revealing both technical skill and the era’s enduring interest in depicting the divine in dynamic, airborne form.

About the Artist

Francesco Allegrini · 1615–1679

Francesco Allegrini (c. 1615/20–after 1679), born likely in Rome to the painter Flaminio Allegrini from Cantiano near Gubbio, emerged from a family of artists that included his sister, Anna Angelica Allegrini. He trained under Giuseppe Cesari, known as the Cavalier d’Arpino, around 1638–40, before entering the studio of Pietro da Cortona, whose dynamic Baroque style profoundly shaped his own. Elec...