The Madonna and Child in Glory Appearing to a Kneeling Young Man

Ciro Ferri · 1655/59

Medium

Black chalk and brush and brown wash, incised with graphite, heightened with white gouache, on ivory laid paper, prepared with brown wash (recto); graphite or black chalk on ivory laid paper (verso)

Original size

13.8 × 10.3 cm (5 7/16 × 4 1/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Baroque

This luminous devotional work captures the tender drama of a celestial vision — the Madonna and Child descending in radiant glory toward a young man in humble supplication below. Ciro Ferri was among the most gifted pupils of Pietro da Cortona, the defining master of Roman High Baroque, and this drawing reveals the full range of his technical command. Working in black chalk and brown wash with white gouache highlights on toned paper, Ferri builds the composition through sweeping tonal contrasts that give the heavenly figures their characteristic buoyancy. The incised graphite lines indicate this was a working study, transferred directly onto a prepared surface for a larger composition. Ferri went on to complete several major fresco cycles left unfinished after his master's death in 1669, including work at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence — projects that brought this same flowing, devotional sensibility to monumental scale and cemented his reputation as one of the foremost decorative painters in Italy. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Ferri's intricate tonal language into the richness of oil on canvas, preserving the warmth and spiritual intimacy of the original while giving the composition the lasting presence it deserves.