
The Departure of Saint Paula and Saint Eustochium for the Holy Land
Giuseppe Bottani
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The drawing is a squared study with minor variations for Bottani's monumental altarpiece now in the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, signed and dated 1745 ( 410 x 231 cm; inv. 410). The painting, generally considered the artist's early masterpiece, was executed in Rome and commissioned by the Hieronymites for their now-destroyed Milanese church of Santi Cosma e Damiano. To the right of the Roman widow Paula stands her daughter Eustochium, who accompanied her to the Holy Land to join Saint Jerome. Paula's daughter Rufina kisses her mother's hand in farewell, and Paula's son Toxotius kneels at the right. In preparation of his large canvas, Bottani realized an highly finished oil sketch, also part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 1991.445). Like many of Bottani's drawings, at his death the sheet was collected and annotated on the bottom by the artist's brother Giovanni, who provided the year of its execution, 1740. (Furio Rinaldi)
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.