Virgin and Child
Black-chalk devotional composition, the Virgin looking down at the infant on her lap
A softly worked black-chalk study of the Virgin and Child, the young woman shown half-length with her head bowed and eyes lowered toward the naked infant seated across her lap. Broad passages of rubbed chalk model her drapery and the child's rounded limbs, while her hand steadies the child at lower center. The composition is conceived as a devotional group of the kind used to prepare a painting.
On this page
The Virgin bowing toward the Child
The Virgin fills the upper half of the sheet, her face tilted down and softened with delicate chalk shading around the eyes and mouth. Her loosely gathered hair frames a serene expression, and the neckline of her dress is drawn with a clasped fastening at the breast. The infant is set against her lap, his head turned up toward her.
Composition for a devotional group
The pyramidal arrangement of mother and child, built up in blended chalk with strong tonal contrasts, reads as a compositional study toward a painted Madonna. Light falls across the Virgin's chest and the child's body, leaving the lower drapery in soft shadow. The rubbing and reworking suggest an artist testing the massing of the group.