Niche Statue of David with the Head of Goliath

Francesco Salviati · n.d.

Medium

Pen and brown ink with brush and brown wash, heightened with traces of white gouache, on buff laid paper, laid down on cream card

Original size

12.9 × 6.2 cm (5 1/8 × 2 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Italian Renaissance

This intimate study captures the triumphant tension of David rendered as a carved niche figure, drawn with the kind of virtuoso line work that made Francesco Salviati one of the most admired draughtsmen of sixteenth-century Florence. Salviati trained under Baccio Bandinelli and Andrea del Sarto before finding his mature voice in the elaborate decorative programs of Roman and Florentine patrons. His pen-and-wash technique here is characteristic — confident hatching building form, brown wash pooling to suggest deep shadow, and traces of white gouache catching the light on the figure's raised arm and torso, mimicking the cool gleam of carved marble. The buff laid paper acts as a ready-made mid-tone, giving the whole composition a warmth unusual for a preparatory study. Salviati was a close friend and contemporary of Giorgio Vasari, who celebrated him in the Lives of the Artists as a supreme master of invention and ornament — a reputation this small but carefully wrought sheet does nothing to contradict. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Salviati's layered ink work into rich painted glazes, preserving the delicate interplay of line, wash, and highlight that gives this drawing its sculptural weight and quiet authority.