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Pietà for Vittoria Colonna

The Pietà for Vittoria Colonna is a black chalk drawing on cardboard (28.9×18.9 cm) attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti, dated to about 1538-44 and kept at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

History Michelangelo became acquainted with Vittoria Colonna around 1538. Their lively friendship gained Michelangelo admission to her social circles, and he became acquainted with issues of church reform. For Colonna, Michelangelo executed several paintings in the fifth decade of the sixteenth century. All of them are now lost or of controversial attribution, but several sketches and copies by students and admirers of Michelangelo have been preserved.

Apart from a famous Crucifixion, Mi...

c. 1546
Black chalk on paper (fabriano, identified from watermark, batch manufactured in 1532, with earliest examples dated 1538, in vienna)
28.9 x 18.9cm
Q3904414
Image and text courtesy of Wikipedia, 2023