Study for the Head of St. Michael (1633): Art, History and Details

Study for the Head of St. Michael (1633) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Pietro da Cortona (Italian, 1596–1669).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Pietro da Cortona drew this angelically beautiful face in a style reminiscent of the work of Renaissance master Raphael (1483–1520). Cortona's use of black chalk to develop extremely subtle effects of shading shows the technique at its most refined. He drew this sheet in preparation for a ceiling decoration, Saint Michael and Angels with the Instruments of the Passion, painted in fresco in the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella (better known as the Chiesa Nuova, or "New Church") in Rome, completed in 1633.

Object facts

• Title: Study for the Head of St. Michael
• Date: 1633
• Creator attribution: Pietro da Cortona (Italian, 1596–1669)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 19 x 16.8 cm (7 1/2 x 6 5/8 in.); Secondary Support: 31.9 x 27.6 cm (12 9/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1996.257

A detail from the museum

The fresco for which this drawing was made as a preparatory study joins works of art by Peter Paul Rubens as well as relics of the Saint Philip Neri in the Chiesa Nuova in Rome.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Merz, Jörg Martin. Pietro da Cortona: Der Aufstieg zum führenden Maler im barocken Rom. Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1991.
• Russell, Francis. "Salesroom Discovery: A Study by Pietro da Cortona." The Burlington Magazine 121, no. 915 (June 1979): 405-406.
• McTavish, David. Italian Drawings from the Collection of Duke Roberto Ferretti. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1985.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.