Getty Museum
Cartoon for the Head of Saint James
Creator
Sebastiano del PiomboItalian Artist · 1485–1547
All works by this person →Though he spent most of his career in Rome, Sebastiano del Piombo's art always bore the unmistakable imprint of his early Venetian training. After first studying with Giovanni Bellini, Sebastiano defected to the "modern" master Giorgione, whose delicate light, brilliant coloring, and soft harmonies influenced him profoundly. When Giorgione died, Sebastiano and Titian completed some of his unfinish
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1520
- Medium
- Black and white chalk,, on two joined sheets of tan paper; silhouetted; pricked for transfer
- Culture
- Italian
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
In this highly sculptural drawing of a head, Sebastiano del Piombo combined black and white chalk to fully model a three-dimensional form. The roughly applied black chalk accentuates the impression of the play of light over the saint's face. Roughly drawn lines suggest the tousled curls on his head, while softer shadows darken his cheeks and eye socket. White chalk highlights the edges of his nose and ear. Sebastiano produced this cartoon for the figure of Saint James in a fresco in a chapel in Rome. In the final fresco, the head of the saint appears at a sharp angle; the joins of the sheets making up this cartoon indicate that it also was composed this way. This head once formed part of a larger sheet, but someone silhouetted it at a later date.
The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Getty Museum and other institutions.