The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence

This large, carefully squared composition by the son of the more famous Lombard painter Bernardino Luini served as a working modello for a fresco that was originally in the church of San Vincenzo alle Monache, Milan (now Pinacoteca del Castello Sforzesco, Milan). The commission is unrecorded, but stylistic comparison to other altarpieces by the artist suggests a date in the 1580s. The drawing retains a freshness of gesture and a lively rhythm of outline that seem lacking in the admittedly very damaged final fresco. Both the stark frontal foreshortening of the figure of Saint Lawrence and the diagonal thrust of the composition were inspired by Titian's famous canvas of the same subject, painted in 1548-57 (Church of the Gesuati, Venice), which became widely known through a number of painted replicas and Cornelis Cort's reproductive engraving.

(Carmen C. Bambach)

Credit: Harry G. Sperling Fund, 1985

1580s-early 1590s

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, highlighted with white gouache, over black chalk, on light tan paper; squared in red chalk

42.0 x 29.0cm

1986.16

Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019