Mother and Child

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Raphael. The drawing is on grey paper, with highlights picked out in white. A seated woman is shown from the side with one arm round her child. The mother is holding a book and apparently reading to her child, but the child is not concentrating, instead looking away towards the viewer. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "7. RAPHAEL (b. 1483; d. 1520) MOTHER AND CHILD Collection of the Duke of Devonshire, K.G., Chatsworth. From the Collection of Sir Peter Lely. Silver point on prepared grey paper heightened with white, 19 x 14 cm. (7 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.). This exquisite study, which has all the delicacy of Raphael's earlier style combined with the breadth and classical perfection of the period of the School of Athens, to which latter period it may be presumed to belong, cannot be connected with any painted work. It has been very exactly engraved by Marcantonio or one of his pupils (Bartsch, xiv. 54. 48), and there is every reason to suppose that the drawing was expressly made for this. A drawing at Oxford (Fischel 441: Robinson 79), representing a mother embracing her child, also engraved, though by a different and inferior hand, is obviously connected with the present drawing, and of the same time. Fischel gives both drawings to G. F. Penni. A. E. P. [O. Fischel, Raphael's Zeichnungen, Strassburg, 1898, No. 410. S. A. Strong, Reproductions of Drawings by Old Masters at Chatsworth, Pl. 49.]"