PERINO DEL VAGA
(b. 1501, Firenze, d. 1547, Roma)

Jupiter Handing a Newborn Boy to Diana

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Pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with yellow, on four joined sheets of light-brown prepared paper, 368 x 462 mm
Private collection

Perhaps the most singular talent active in Raphael's studio, Perino propelled his master's classical manner into the exuberant and elegant style that became known as Mannerism. Even more than his painted oeuvre, Perino's drawings are as puzzling in their stylistic diversity as they are exciting for their virtuosic use of the pen and their inventiveness. The present sheet – bold in style, large in scale, unusual in technique – is an exceptional example of the artist's originality.

The drawing belongs to a group of eleven sheets, all executed with pen and brush on brown-tinted paper and heightened with yellow bodycolour. The result seems to have been meant to imitate bronze reliefs, not unlike the scenes Perino is known to have painted for Raphael in the Vatican Loggie. The other sheets of the group are in various museums

The present sheet is the only one of the group in private collections, the others are in various museums (Courtauld Gallery, London; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden).