Ballad Singer at a Shrine of the Virgin
<p>A Genoese artist who worked mostly in Milan, Alessandro Magnasco epitomizes the transition between 17th- and 18th-century art in northern Italy. Rarely did his highly individual style find such expression as in this drawing, in which reddish-brown chalk wash heightened with white approximates the agitated strokes of the heavily applied impasto in his oil paintings.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1720
- Dimensions
- 46.6 × 37 cm (18 3/8 × 14 5/8 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Alessandro Magnasco
Artist
Painting
Alessandro Magnasco was a Genoese painter of the 18th century known for dramatic, loosely handled scenes of monks, nuns, beggars, and landscapes rendered in dark, atmospheric tones. His technique employed rapid brushwork and chiaroscuro to create a sense of movement and psychological intensity across religious and secular subjects. Active primarily in Genoa and Venice, Magnasco developed a distinctive approach to figural composition that influenced Venetian painting in the decades following his death in 1749.
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More by Alessandro Magnasco
Christ at the Sea of Galilee
1740 · oil on canvas
The Choristers
1740 · oil on canvas
The Baptism of Christ
1740 · oil on canvas
The Synagogue
1725 · Oil on canvas
Picaresque Group with a Monkey and a Magpie
1720 · Brush and brown gouache and brush and brown wash, with touches of red and brown chalk, heightened with white chalk, over black chalk, on blue laid paper (discolored to pale brownish-gray)
The Baptism of Christ
1720 · brown wash over black chalk, heightened with white gouache, on buff laid paper
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Alessandro Magnasco
- Year
- 1720
- Dimensions
- 46.6 × 37 cm (18 3/8 × 14 5/8 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1720-118896
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified