The Virgin Immaculate Appearing to Four Saints

The Virgin Immaculate Appearing to Four Saints

Ciro Ferri

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The monastic saints kneeling at the right of this composition may be Carmelites (possibly Saint Angelus of Jerusalem and Saint Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi), and the drawing could be a study for an oval relief. Ciro Ferri was responsible for the design of the choir of the church of Santa Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi in Florence, which he executed 1675–1701; however, no such composition occurs among the reliefs here. A black chalk drawing by Ferri in the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf (inv. vol. 2, g 2), is a study for the same oval relief: the figures are posed in the same way, but there is a greater expanse of landscape background seen beyond the balustrade. On a visit to the Museum, Jörg Merz (December 2004) tentatively proposed the attribution of the drawing to Pietro Lucatelli (ca. 1630- after 1690), a close pupil of Ciro Ferri.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Virgin Immaculate Appearing to Four SaintsThe Virgin Immaculate Appearing to Four SaintsThe Virgin Immaculate Appearing to Four SaintsThe Virgin Immaculate Appearing to Four SaintsThe Virgin Immaculate Appearing to Four Saints

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.