1518
chalk
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Dominant colour
A Prophet Addressed by an Angel is a 1518 chalk by Sebastiano del Piombo, a Renaissance work, depicting John the Evangelist, held at National Gallery of Art.
You see a man in robes standing under a tree, an angel hovering above him with one hand raised. This drawing was made as a study for a fresco in a Roman church. The four curved lines at the bottom are compass marks—Sebastiano used them to scale the sketch up to wall size. The blue paper was rare and expensive, showing how important the project was. Look up the technique called *sfumato*—it’s how artists like this blurred edges to make figures look soft and real.
Sebastiano del Piombo (Italian: ; c. 1485 – 21 June 1547) was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance and early Mannerist periods, famous as the only major artist of the period to combine the colouring of the…
See the richer artist pageYour cart is empty
Explore artworks →
