Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level C , Case IONIDES, Shelf 20

An angel with a sword passing over a group of dead or stricken people

Drawing
1647 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Pen and ink and wash drawing depicting an angel with a sword passing over a group of dead or stricken people, possibly the death of the first-born in Egypt (Exodus I I: 1-8 and 12: 29-42).


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleAn angel with a sword passing over a group of dead or stricken people (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Pen and ink and wash
Brief description
Pen and wash drawing by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, known as Il Grechetto, depicting an angel with a sword passing over a group of dead or stricken people. Italy, 1647.
Physical description
Pen and ink and wash drawing depicting an angel with a sword passing over a group of dead or stricken people, possibly the death of the first-born in Egypt (Exodus I I: 1-8 and 12: 29-42).
Dimensions
  • Height: 254mm
  • Width: 374mm
Dimensions taken from departmental notes
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic reference
Ward-Jackson, Peter, Italian Drawings, Volume Two: 17th-18th Century , London, 1979, p.35 , cat. n. 666, illus. The following is the full text of the entry: CASTIGLIONE, GIOVANNI BENEDETTO known as il Grechetto (c. 1610-63/65) 666 An angel with a sword passing over a group of dead or stricken people: possibly the death of the first-born in Egypt (Exodus I I: 1-8 and 12: 29-42) Inscribed in ink '47' Pen and ink and wash 10 X 14 3/4 (254 x 374) CAI.829 PROVENANCE Robt Cole (the name is stamped, blind, in the bottom left corner); Ionides Bequest 1901 (Lugt 488) LITERATURE Ionides Catalogue, p. 19 (as anonymous) Catalogued till lately as anonymous, 18th century, but manifestly by Castiglione. Among the touches characteristic of him are the square, wide open mouths, filled with vertical shading like a grill, and the short parallel hatching lines placed in small bunches close together. Another characteristic feature is the contorted attitude of the corpse on the left. A corpse in exactly the same posture occurs in a drawing of Tobit burying the dead attributed to Castiglione in the Witt Collection (Courtauld Institute, London; illustrated in A. Blunt, 'A Poussin-Castiglione problem' in The Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 3, 1939-40, p. 144, pI. 27b). Both drawings may be included in that group of pen and wash drawings which Blunt dates about 1640-45 (Blunt, Castiglione, pp. 30-1, nos. 18-30).
Collection
Accession number
CAI.829

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
Record URL
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