Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Young Man with Finger Raised to Lips

Italian School
16th century

Young Man with Finger Raised to Lips

ca. 1600
16 7/16 x 11 7/8 inches (418 x 302 mm)
Black chalk on paper.
1961.59

Gift of H.P. Kraus.

Notes
Watermark: none.
Attributed by H.P. Kraus to El Greco. Acquired as Italian school.
Description

The donor H. P. Kraus tentatively attributed the drawing to El Greco, who is almost entirely unknown as a draftsman. One of the rare sketches by the artist, a free study in pen and ink for a known painting of Saint John the Evangelist and an Angel, from the late 1590s, in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and three drawings in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, given to him, are of a very different facture.1 The old inscription Annibale Carracci suggests a Bolognese origin for the drawing, a connection with which Nicholas Turner agreed (unpublished correspondence with Morgan curators, 2007). The size and technique of the study and the unusual crop at the lower and upper edges suggest that it was a cartoon for a painting or fresco.

Footnotes:

  1. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, inv. 82.GA.166; Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, inv. 105, 107 and 109.
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed: Annibale Carracci.
Associated names
Greco, 1541?-1614, Formerly attributed to.
Carracci, Annibale, 1560-1609, Formerly attributed to.
Kraus, Hans Peter, 1907-1988, former owner.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department