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The painting reproduces an original by Giulio Romano that was in the Royal Palace of Madrid and passed to the Wellington Collection during the War of Independence, as part of King Joseph Bonaparte´s luggage. The original is now in Apsley House (WM 1618GÇô1948, oil on wood, 51 x 37 cm).
The Virgin Mary visits her cousin, Elisabeth, who is pregnant with Saint John, as told in the New Testament (Luke 1, 39-45). That is the moment when the Virgin sings the Magnificat. The two figures can be told apart by their age. Mary is depicted as a young woman while Elizabeth, on the left, is almost an old woman, which emphasizes the miracle of her pregnancy, as the Bible texts have it. The sce
Leaning on a classical ruin, Saint Joseph looks at the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child in her lap. Jesus, in turn, is receiving a roll with the words Ecce Agnus Dei from Saint John. This Latin inscription meaning Lamb of God refers to the Passion of Christ, who sacrifices himself, just as lambs were sacrified by the Jews, in order to save humanity from sin. The oak tree standing behind the main
The hand and forearm correspond, in reverse, to that of the Roman general Scipio Africanus in a composition of the Continence of Scipio, the appearance of which is recorded in an old copy in the Louvre. In the Louvre drawing, Scipio is shown seated on a throne in front of his lictors: clearly seen in the cartoon fragment are the fasces held by two of the lictors, as well as the tunic decorated wit
An old (not unintelligent) attibution to Lelio Orsi is written on the reverse. In a note on the modern museum mount dated 1980, Sylvie Béguin has written "after Giulio Romano". In my opinion, the drawing, though impaired in its effect from the silhouetting of the figure, seems entirely autograph.
This is the most Raphaelesque of all the sixteenth-century Italian drawings in the Prado, the confident style of drawing in black chalk echoing that of Raphael´s own late drawings in the medium, above all his studies for heads in the Transfiguration in the PinacotecaVaticana, in the British Museum, London, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and elsewhere. Here in the Prado drawing, the execution is fin
This and the drawing D1807, Standing warrior, resting his foot on the head of a dragon, are companions and have remained together from at least as long ago as the late eighteenth century, when they were kept together in the same collection, and were each laid down onto the standard mount of this collector, who however remains unknown. The first drawing carries the date April 1531, which indeed fit
This and the drawing D1806, Warrior with a shield, are companions and have remained together from at least as long ago as the late eighteenth century, when they were kept together in the same collection, and were each laid down onto the standard mount of this collector, who however remains unknown. The second drawing carries the date April 1531, which indeed fits precisely with the style of Giulio
