Studies of a Figure Bending Over, Two Putti, and an Arm (recto); Rest on the Flight into Egypt (verso)

Cesare Rossetti · 1596/97

Medium

Pen and brown iron-gall ink, with brush and brown wash, over black chalk (recto), and pen and brown iron-gall ink, with brush and brown wash, over touches of black chalk, heightened with lead white gouache (partially oxidized) (verso), on ivory laid paper

Original size

26.8 × 20.5 cm (10 9/16 × 8 1/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

This double-sided sheet by Cesare Rossetti offers a rare window into the working mind of a late Renaissance draughtsman — two distinct compositions occupying the same piece of ivory laid paper, each one a study in economy and grace. Rossetti was active in Rome during the late sixteenth century, working within the orbit of Federico Zuccaro and the broader Mannerist tradition. The recto's fluid pen work and brown wash, built over a black chalk underdrawing, demonstrates the layered discipline typical of serious preparatory draughtsmanship of the period — light and shadow constructed incrementally rather than applied. The verso's Rest on the Flight into Egypt introduces lead white gouache for highlights, though time has partially oxidised these passages, adding an unintended antiquity to the surface. The Art Institute of Chicago dates the sheet to 1596 or 1597, placing it squarely within Rossetti's mature Roman years, when preparatory studies like this one served as essential tools for larger commissioned works. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the intimate warmth of Rossetti's original ink and wash into a medium that holds those tonal gradations with lasting depth, making a genuinely rare work accessible for the first time outside an institution's storage.