Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

Description

A painter and skilled engraver, Federico Barocci was an experimental etcher. Here he explored the effects of light and shade by sequentially stopping out sections of the plate with a wax resist while immersing it in acid. The areas protected by the resist were not etched, while the parts that were exposed to the acid throughout the entire process were etched with dark, thick lines. The suggestive, hallucinatory effect of the resulting print dramatizes the saint’s moment of revelation, as the details of the terrestrial world fade into the pale background.

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata

Federico Barocci

c. 1581

Accession Number

86972

Medium

Etching on cream laid paper

Dimensions

Plate: 23 × 14.7 cm (9 1/16 × 5 13/16 in.); Sheet: 23.3 × 15 cm (9 3/16 × 5 15/16 in.)

Classification

print

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Joseph Brooks Fair Fund