Three Studies of Angels for a Pendentive (recto); Studies for Christ Meeting His Mother on the Road to Calvary, Studies of an Angel in a Pendentive (verso) (1599/1604): Art, History and Details

Three Studies of Angels for a Pendentive (recto); Studies for Christ Meeting His Mother on the Road to Calvary, Studies of an Angel in a Pendentive (verso) (1599/1604) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Cristoforo Roncalli (Italian, 1552–1626).

The work and its context

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

In 1590, a generation after Michelangelo’s death, the dome he designed for Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome was finally completed. In 1597 Pope Clement VIII commissioned the mosaic decoration of the interior of the dome, choosing Cristoforo Roncalli in part because of his training in Florence, an origin he shared with Michelangelo. Roncalli made this preparatory drawing for the angels that would appear at each side of the four Evangelists in the trapezoidal spaces where the dome meets the supporting arches, called pendentives. Roncalli practiced rendering the foreshortened human form in three studies across the sheet, which are early stages of the design.

Object facts

• Title: Three Studies of Angels for a Pendentive (recto); Studies for Christ Meeting His Mother on the Road to Calvary, Studies of an Angel in a Pendentive (verso)
• Date: 1599/1604
• Creator attribution: Cristoforo Roncalli (Italian, 1552–1626)
• Culture: Italy, late 16th-early 17th Century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: red chalk; squared in red chalk (left half), framing lines in red chalk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 27.8 x 35.3 cm (10 15/16 x 13 7/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1989.45

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

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.