The Coronation of the Virgin

Ercole Setti · 1575

Medium

Pen and brown iron-gall ink and brush and brown wash, heightened with white gouache, over traces of graphite, on blue laid paper, squared in graphite for transfer, with extraneous traces of colored oil paints

Original size

18.4 × 20.3 cm (7 1/4 × 8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Mannerism

*The Coronation of the Virgin* carries the hushed grandeur of a heavenly court, figures arranged with a Mannerist elegance that balances devotional gravity with lyrical grace. Ercole Setti worked in Modena during the late sixteenth century, a period when Italian draughtsmanship was highly prized as an art form in its own right, not merely a step toward a finished canvas. This work — executed in pen, brown wash, and white gouache on blue laid paper — reveals the full sophistication of his preparatory process, the white heightening pulling luminous figures from a tonal ground with remarkable delicacy. The sheet is squared in graphite for transfer, meaning this drawing served as the direct blueprint for a larger painted composition, and the Art Institute of Chicago preserves it as a rare window into that private, working stage of creation. Traces of colored oil paint visible on the surface suggest the sheet passed through a working studio, picked up and handled across multiple stages of production. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the luminous atmosphere of the original into richly layered paint, capturing the interplay of light, shadow, and sacred stillness that Setti composed so carefully over four centuries ago.