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The Vision of St Romuald: PD.18-1996

An image of Drawing
View image details Mirador icon - view image Mirador deep zoom IIIF Manifest IIIF Manifest Slow looking

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An image of Drawing
An image of Drawing
Current Location: In storage

Titles

The Vision of St Romuald

Maker(s)

Draughtsman: Sacchi, Andrea

Entities

Categories

Notes

History note: Private collection, Britain; with Luca Baroni [P. & D. Colnaghi]

Legal notes

From the Rylands Fund.

Measurements and weight

Height: 337 mm
Width: 259 mm

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Bought (1996) by Colnaghi

Note

This drawing is a preparatory study for Sacchi's most famous painting, 'The Vision of St Romuald' of 1631, now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana [see Ann Sutherland Harris, 'Andrea Sacchi', Princeton, 1977, pp. 61-62, no. 20, pl. 41]. Commissioned by the Camaldolese order in Rome for the high altar of their new church of San Romualdo, the painting depicts the saint describing his vision of Camaldolese monks ascending a ladder to Heaven. Possibly commissioned by Cardinal Lelio Biscia, Vice-Proctor of the Camaldolese order, the painting remained in the church until 1797, when it was taken to Paris to be part of the Musée Napoléon. The painting was back in Rome by 1823 and entered the Pinacoteca Vatican soon after. The 'Vision of St Romuald' was widely copied and secured Sacchi's reputation. Another compositional study for the painting is at Stockholm [NM 1274/1863] [Bjurström and Magnusson, loc. cit.]. Unlike the Fitzwilliam drawing, which is very close to the painting, this differs in that the saint is accompanied by angels rather that by monks. It is likely therefore that the Stockholm drawing was made before the Fitzwilliam one. Further studies for different details of the composition are at Windsor, Paris, Düsseldforf and Besançon. Ann Sutherland Harris [op. cit. p.14] has shown that Sacchi originally was inspired by Antiveduto Grammatica's painting of the same subject at Frascati, probably painted c. 1620.

School or Style

Italian
Roman School

Materials used in production

Red chalk wash
Red chalk

Components of the work

Support composed of paper ( grey brown)

Techniques used in production

Drawing : Red chalk and red chalk wash on grey brown paper

References and bibliographic entries

Related exhibitions

Identification numbers

Accession number: PD.18-1996
Primary reference Number: 32975

Audit data

Created: Saturday 6 August 2011 Updated: Monday 25 March 2024

Associated departments & institutions

Owner or interested party: The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department: Paintings, Drawings and Prints

Citation for print

This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:

The Fitzwilliam Museum (2025) "The Vision of St Romuald" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/32975 Accessed: 2025-12-10 15:55:26

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{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/32975 |title=The Vision of St Romuald |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2025-12-10 15:55:26|publisher=The University of Cambridge}}

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