1508
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Studies of a Seated Female, Child's Head, and Three Studies of a Baby is a 1508 by Raphael, a Renaissance work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
This drawing shows three small sketches of a woman and baby. The top sketch focuses on a seated woman’s draped clothing. The middle and bottom sketches capture a child’s head from different angles. The artist used metalpoint, a technique where a metal stylus leaves faint, precise lines. This was part of Raphael’s “pink sketchbook,” a tiny notebook he carried while traveling. The small sheets helped him practice quickly. If you like this style, look at the other sketches in The Cleveland Museum of Art.
This drawing is from Raphael’s "pink sketchbook," comprised of ten sheets of roughly equal size that each portray variations of a mother and child. Today, six of the drawings at the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille; two are at the British Museum; one is in a private collection; and one is in Cleveland. The small format of the sheets would have enabled the artist to carry the notebook as he traveled from Florence to Rome in 1508. Raphael used metalpoint, a technique popular in 15th- and early 16th-century Italy on a pink prepared surface. The pose of the infant's head in the drawing was based on…
This sheet was probably once part of a sketchbook carried by the artist Raphael on a 1508 journey between Florence and Rome.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Raphael was born Raffaello Sanzio in Urbino on April 6, 1483, the son of Giovanni Santi, a painter and poet attached to the ducal court.
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
