Study for "The Baptism of Christ"

Artist Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino (Italian, ca. 1450-1523)

Date1480s

MediumOpaque brown watercolor, heightened in gray, white, and pale ocher, over stylus on pink prepared paper

DimensionsOverall: 10 15/16 × 4 13/16 inches (27.76 × 12.24 cm)
Framed: 21 × 17 × 1 inches (53.34 × 43.18 × 2.54 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number34-300/2

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Loan Exhibition of Old Master Drawings from Midwestern Museums, Detroit Institute of Arts, June 1-September 15, 1950, no. 41, as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

The Lively Arts of the Renaissance, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, January 15-February 21, 1960, no. 88, as Study for the Baptism of Christ.

Anatomy and Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, May 8-June 5, 1960, no. 21, as Study for the “Baptism of Christ”.

Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Washington University Gallery of Art, Saint Louis, MO, September 22-December 3, 1989, unnumbered, as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 17-March 25, 1990, no cat., as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23-August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20-November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996-March 2, 1997, no. 2, as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 12-September 6, 1998, no cat., as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

Gallery Label

The human figure emerged as an object of scrutiny during the Renaissance. Artists often made intricate drawings from live nude models to work out subtleties in body movement, gesture, and facial expression. This sketch is most likely a preparatory study for one of Perugino's scenes of Christ during his baptism in the Jordan River. Here, Perugino traced the figure with a stylus and then applied a wash of color within the indented line. Fine lines of grey and white enhance the illusion of three-dimensional form.

Provenance

Marquis Charles de Valori (1820-1883), Paris [1];

Emile Wauters (1846-1933), Brussels and Paris, by 1913 [2];

Dessins anciens: Collection de M.-E[mile] W[auters]…, artiste peintre, Frederik Muller et C^ie, Amsterdam, June 15-16, 1926, lot 197, as Etude d’un homme nu;

Purchased from Georgiana Isabella Frances Blois (née Domvile, 1888-1967), London, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1934.

NOTES:

[1] The collector's mark of Marquis Charles de Valori appear on the recto of the drawing (lower right-hand side). See Lugt 2500

[2] The collector's mark of Emile Wauters appears on the recto of the drawing (lower right-hand side). See Lugt 911

Published References

Frederic Lees, The Art of the Great Masters as Exemplified by Drawings in the Collection of Emile Wauters, membre de l’académie royale de Belgique (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1913), 10-11, (repro.), as Study for a Baptism of Christ.

Dessins anciens: Collection de M.-E[mile] W[auters]…, artiste peintre (Amsterdam: Frederik Muller et C^ie, June 15-16, 1926), unpaginated, (repro.), as Etude d’un homme nu.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2^nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 93, 98, (repro.), as Study for the “Baptism of Christ”.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 123, (repro.) as Study for the “Baptism of Christ”.

John S. Newberry, Loan Exhibition of Old Master Drawings from Midwestern Museums, exh. cat. (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1950), unpaginated, (repro.), as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

n.a. “Artists’ Handwriting Makes Good Reading at the Detroit Institute,” Art Digest 24, no. 17 (June 1, 1950): 9, (repro.), as Study for Baptism of Christ in the Sistine Chapel.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 63, (repro.), as Study for the “Baptism of Christ”.

“Anatomy and Art,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 3, no. 1 (May 8-June 5, 1960): 14-15, as Study for the “Baptism of Christ”.

The Lively Arts of the Renaissance, exh. cat. (Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1960), unpaginated, (repro.), as Study for the Baptism of Christ.

Hans R. Hoetink, Italiaanse tekeningen in Nederlands bezit, vol. 1, Catalogus, exh. cat. (Rotterdam: Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 1962), 26.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 176-77, (repro.), as Study for the “Baptism of Christ”.

Patricia Corbett, “Connoisseur’s World: Power Lines,” Connoisseur 219, no. 934 (November 1989): 44, as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

Roger Ward and Mark S. Weil, Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, exh. cat. (St. Louis, MO: Washington University Gallery of Art, 1989), 6, 9, 14, (repro.), as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

Burton Dunbar and Edward J. Olszewski, eds., Drawings in Midwestern Collections, vol. 1, Early Works (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1996), 91-93, (repro.), as Study for the Baptism of Christ.

Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 37-39, (repro.), as Study for “The Baptism of Christ”.

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