Death of a Saint

Unknown Sienese · c. 1580

Medium

Black chalk with brush and brown wash, and incising, heightened with touches of white gouache, on ivory laid paper, pieced and partially laid down on ivory laid paper

Original size

22 × 16.7 cm (8 11/16 × 6 5/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

"Death of a Saint" carries the hushed solemnity that defined devotional art in late sixteenth-century Siena — a scene of spiritual passage drawn with controlled emotion and quiet dignity. The anonymous Sienese artist worked in a technique typical of Italian draughtsmen of the period: black chalk to lay in the composition, brown wash to model form and deepen shadow, white gouache to lift passages of light, and incising — the deliberate scoring of the paper's surface — to anchor key lines with precision. By 1580, Sienese painters had absorbed the elongated figures and dramatic spatial compression of Roman Mannerism while preserving the city's centuries-old instinct for devotional tenderness, and this work reflects that careful balance. Works of this kind were commonly used as preparatory studies for altarpieces and fresco cycles, meaning this sheet may have served as the blueprint for a larger sacred commission now lost to time. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves it as a rare example of late Sienese draughtsmanship within its Italian works collection. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the tonal delicacy of the original into the depth and permanence of oil on canvas, capturing both the technique and the reverence behind it.