Description

This lively sketch is a preparatory drawing for one of three 1555 frescoes that Vasari painted for a church ceiling vault in the central Italian town of Cortona. The artist’s line, rapidly applied in pen and ink, belies the careful thought given to the composition, in which Vasari makes utmost use of the scene’s horizontal format.

The paint stains on the drawing’s right side indicate that this was a working drawing used in the painting process.

Provenance

Private collection, Paris; sold, Sotheby’s, London, July 9, 2014, lot 14. W. M. Brady and Co., New York, by 2015 [Härb 2015]; sold to the Gray Collection Trust, Chicago, June 6, 2017; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.

The Conversion of Saint Paul

Giorgio Vasari

1554

Accession Number

244912

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, with splatters of gray, green and pink paint over black chalk, squared in black chalk, on cream laid paper, with framing lines in pen and brown ink, laid down on secondary paper